Anna Marie
by Kasamyra
Summary: Anna, in her last year at Hogwarts, is famous among the muggles. In fact, she has just won an MTV award for best new artist. Upon her return to school, there are a lot of changes for her to deal with, such as her new room mates, excessively difficult homework, her mothers need to control everything, and her struggle to stay on top of her career. 8th year fic
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

"Are you nervous?" A blonde woman asked as she circled a teenage girl who looked much like her, straightening clothes and hair as she went, though both were immaculately positioned by the various nit-picking muggle women paid to make her presentable, and also with a couple tiny charms done by the woman in question, in the secrecy of the dressing room of course.

The girl in question, at sixteen, had her mother's blonde hair, with just a touch of red in it, and also her mother's delicate features, small nose and chin, and defined cheek bones. Her hair, usually wavy, had been meticulously curled and styled and pinned back, and had just enough hairspray in it to make it stay. She had her father's eyes though, and currently, those green eyes were wide, despite the makeup that had been expertly applied to make them narrower, which was apparently the current muggle ideal of beauty.

She was nervous, but she would never tell her mother that.

"Not at all," the girl replied, batting her mother away from her. She straightened her collar, which had a microphone pinned onto it in a place that would be covered by her hair if she sat properly.

"That's the spirit, love," her mother said, smiling as a stagehand approached them. "You'll do beautifully, just be yourself."

"I will mum," she said, taking a deep breath in.

"You're on in two minutes," the stagehand said, leading her over to a place where she could just barely see the stage, and the presenter who was currently wrapping up an interview with some other man that the girl didn't pay any attention to. "Wait until they say your name, then walk over, shake hands, and have a seat."

"Thank you," she breathed in reply, taking another deep breath as she listened to the talk show host enthusiastically bid farewell to the man.

"Our next guest just won the Grammy for the 'Best New Artist'. You've heard her on the radio, you saw her perform at the VMA's, all the way from London, England, please welcome the very talented, very beautiful ANNA MARIE!"

Anna took one last breath, then pasted a falsely excited grin onto her face as the room broke into applause and cheers. She walked onto the stage, waving with both hands as she grinned out over the live studio audience. She shook hands with the host of the show, then daintily took a seat in the chair intended for her. She crossed her ankles, smoothing her skirt over her lap as the clapping died down.

"Hello hello, Anna, we are so glad you could be here today," the smiling man said, sitting back down as the room quieted again.

"I'm glad to be here," Anna said, keeping her mouth in a fixed, polite smile that she had been taught as a child, coming from a pureblood family that, up until a few years ago, had stuck very closely to old traditions.

"So you currently live in London, yes?" He asked, and she nodded in reply. "So how are you liking New York so far?"

"Oh it's lovely," she said, leaning forward a little as though telling a secret. "I've met so many interesting people since coming here."

"Interesting is one way of putting it," the host said to the room at large, and the crowd gave the intended chuckles. "So, let's talk about your album," he said when they had quieted. "You go by Anna Marie, but I'm told your full name is Anna Prewett?"

"Yes," Anna said, chuckling. "Anna Marie just sounds better. Anna Prewett doesn't roll off the tongue so easily."

"Very true," he said, chuckling with her. "So your album is called 'Here We Go'. Does that title have any meaning for you?"

"Well, honestly, I chose it because it's something my dad always said when I was little. Every time he wanted me to try something new, anything from vegetables to swimming, he would say 'here we go'. To me it's always been something that meant an adventure would follow, and it seemed a fitting title for my first ever album."

"Very fitting," he agreed, nodding. "And what an adventure you've had so far. You released the album in August of last year, and since then it seems like it's been a nonstop radio interviews, award shows, and photo shoots, and you have still been attending school between all of that?"

"It's been very busy," she agreed, nodding. "I go to a boarding school for most of the year, so I've had to fit all my recording and writing in between classes and homework."

"And do you think it's been worth it?" He asked, leaning forward in his chair.

"Oh definitely," she said, grinning. "At this time last year I was just a normal girl who sang around the house for fun. I never would have believed I'd be here."

"So tell us, Anna, how did this album come to be?" He asked.

"Well, I've loved singing ever since I was little, and I've been playing piano and guitar since I was about seven. When I was ten I got a video camera for my birthday, and I immediately made an account on YouTube and posted videos of my covers of songs I liked. I've always liked classical music, and when I was young I would make up lyrics to go along with the cd's my mum used to play, and it just sort of led to me writing my own songs," Anna stopped talking for a moment, making sure she wasn't going too fast. She wasn't nervous in front of crowds when she was singing, but it was very warm on the stage under all the lights, and she was focusing hard on not saying the wrong things, so she took a sip of her water to buy herself a moment, hoping she wasn't sweating at all. "I recorded my mums favorites of the songs I'd written to give to her for Christmas, and she played them for her friends, who liked them as well. One of my mums friends had a brother who's a music producer, and when he heard my music he called me up and offered me a contract. It was all very much luck."

"Well I think I can say that we all agree with your producers decision," he said, grinning. "As this year's winner of the 'Best New Artist' Grammy award, what are your plans for this year? Is there more music on the way?"

"Well I return to school in September for my last year," Anna said, nodding. "There is definitely some new music planned for this year though. In fact, I have a new one that I'd like to sing for you today, if you don't mind."

The crowd cheered as he nodded, and she stood up. The host led her over to the performing area of the stage as the applause continued. They had rehearsed this part yesterday, so Anna knew to make her way to the piano bench, and the microphone in front of the piano was already positioned for her height. As a solo artist she didn't have any back up singers or a band, but she liked it better that way.

"This song is called 'Scarecrow'," she said, then took one deep breath in as the noise died down, and she began to play. The piano was comforting under her hands, familiar and almost warm. This was where she belonged. Music was the only thing in life she enjoyed sometimes, and it never let her down.

Her hands had memorized the movements and she played through the first few bars without thinking about it, letting herself sink into the motions for a moment, then she lifted her head and leaned forward a little to sing into the microphone. Her voice was soft and clear, and it flowed over the room, mixing with the piano notes. The room was silent until she was finished and stood to bow, then they broke into cheers again and she grinned.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Anna Marie! You can find her album, Here We Go on iTunes and in stores near you."

* * *

"You did very well," Anna's mother said on their ride back to their hotel that evening. "For a first talk show you were brilliant."

"Thanks mum," Anna said, leaning against the door of the car and stifling a yawn. It wasn't late, not even four in the evening here, but London was seven hours ahead and she still had what the muggles called 'jet lag' even though they had traveled through the floo.

"Are you tired?" Her mum asked, watching the driver as he weaved through the streets to their hotel.

"Yes," Anna mumbled, closing her eyes. "This was the last thing we had to do here wasn't it? Can we go home now?"

"You still have a photoshoot in the morning for a magazine called 'Seventeen'," her mother said. "But we can go home tomorrow after that and you can sleep for the rest of today."

"Good," she said, then covered another yawn.

"Are you all packed for school?" Her mum asked, and Anna sighed. She just wanted to ride in silence and maybe take a short nap.

"Not yet mum," she said.

"I told you to finish before we left!" The woman said indignantly. "You aren't going to have time before the train leaves."

"If we leave tomorrow right after the shoot we will," Anna said, her voice a little accusatory. Her mother had a habit of finding reasons to stay where they were as long as possible, always finding people to talk to or some place to go see 'real quick while they were here'. Anna loved her mum, she really did, but sometimes she just wanted to be away from the woman for a while. She was glad school would be starting the day after tomorrow. She couldn't wait to go back, even though last year had been horrid.

She hoped sincerely that none of the muggleborns at school had heard of her, she didn't want anything there to change. She had friends there, but almost nobody knew who she was last year, and it was very nice after being stopped on the street all summer. Her music was more popular in America though, so she hoped that nobody at school would recognize her. Though her music had gotten a lot more popular over the summer. The VMA's had been presented only three days before, and she hoped beyond hope that nobody in London had watched them, though she knew she was kidding herself. It was her last year though, so maybe she could just sneak through unnoticed.

It helped that she went to Hogwarts, any muggle who tried to figure out which unnamed 'boarding school' she attended would come up empty handed. Her last name was a problem though. Prewett was an old pureblood name, and she knew that if any other purebloods heard the name they would know who she was. She knew that most purebloods didn't listen to muggle music though, and she knew that none of the muggle borns would recognize her surname as a magical one.

Her mother, a pureblood witch, may never have let her join the muggle music community if her father had still been alive. He had been very conservative, but Anna's mum had come from a very open minded family. He had passed away three years ago though, and when Anna had been arguing her mother around, the final winning point had been that her father had always said she had a beautiful voice and that she should share it with others. Anna was sure her father hadn't meant muggles to be the others, but her mum had let her record after that.

"Fine, fine," her mother said now, brushing off the comment. Anna grinned. She had purposefully not finished packing in hopes that she could use that to lure her mother home sooner, and it seemed to work so far.

At the hotel, Anna changed into her pajamas and fell into her bed, falling asleep immediately.

Thanks to her early bed time, Anna was well rested at five when her mother came to wake her for the photoshoot. They didn't have to travel far as the magazine photographer had agreed to use the hotel ballroom.

When they arrived downstairs the photographer was directing half a dozen people on where to put up screens and lights, and a small woman with dark hair came running over to them as soon as they entered the room.

"Anna Marie!" She exclaimed, giving the girl a quick hug in greeting. Anna had grown used to this behavior over the last few months, it seemed to be how most females greeted other females in the music business. She patted the woman back, then stood straight as she pulled away. "We have a dressing room set up for you right over here, and a makeup artist ready when you're dressed. Your clothes are all there already."

"Thank you," Anna said, following the woman across the room. "Which outfit would they like first?"

"This one right here," she said, gesturing to the wall where a multitude of hangers on a rack held a short black skirt, a bright red tank top, a black leather jacket, and about ten variations of the same outfit for her to choose from.

"That's a little… punk… don't you think?" Anna asked, holding the skirt in front of her.

"Feel free to change it up if you want," the woman said as she bustled back to the door. "Head on over to makeup and hair when you're finished.

"Alright," Anna said. "Thank you."

When the woman left, Anna turned back to the rack with a frown. Her music was piano based, or acoustic guitar on a few tracks. This punk look did not suit it at all. She combed through the different combinations they had put out for her, then picked a pleated skirt from one hanger and a long red tank top from another, then a black cardigan from a completely different rack. Once dressed she went out to the makeup artist, who decided on a natural look, telling Anna that it was 'all the rage'. Anna chuckled at that, but let the woman do what she wanted. While that woman worked, another one began to style her hair into large, loose curls.

She was in front of the white screen within half an hour, and then spent the next three hours following the photographer's instructions, changing when told, and getting her hair restyled when it was too blown out from the fans they used in the shoot.

Finally, far after Anna had lost her enthusiasm for the photoshoot, the photographer declared that he had enough pictures and she was free to leave. The woman in charge of wardrobe told her that she could keep anything she had used in the shoot since they wouldn't reuse them anyway. She had been told the same at the other two photo shoots she had gone to as well.

By noon, Anna was ready to go home, her wardrobe of muggle clothes much larger than it had been two weeks ago when they had come to America.

* * *

"Anna!" The voice floated up the stairs for the fourth time that morning. Anna groaned and rolled over in her bed, pulling a pillow over her face in an attempt to block out the sun and her mother's voice. "Anna get up now! If we don't leave in the next ten minutes we'll miss the train!"

Anna sat up with a jolt and was out of bed in seconds. She quickly stripped out of her pajama shorts and pulled on the designer jeans that were popular in the states right now, she had laid out the night before. Her shirt was next on, and she didn't bother to straighten it as she rushed to the mirror. The last few months in the public eye had taught her that image was everything to the people in her business that mattered, and that had taught her how to quickly and efficiently apply her own makeup and style her hair. She hadn't bothered to take off her makeup from the day before so she just retouched it and then moved on to her hair. It was impossibly matted from her sleep, not to mention the hairspray that had been in it yesterday. She had meant to get up and shower this morning before she left, but her mother had scheduled a last minute interview last night and they hadn't gotten home till near two in the morning.

She gave up on trying to brush out her hair and instead twisted it up into a messy bun, pinning in the ends so it sat right, then pulling out tendrils around her face to complete the look. She took herself in, using the full length mirror on the back of her bedroom door to get the full effect. The hair went well with her loose pale blue blouse and dark skinny jeans. She pulled on a black cardigan over it and used a pair of large sunglasses to push back some of the loose hair around her face. Black flats and a thin silver necklace completed the outfit.

"Anna! You had better be awake!" Her mother called from downstairs. "It's time to go. The limo is here."

"Do we have to take a limo? Why can't we just apparate?" Anna called with a groan as she threw her makeup bag into her purse, double checking that her wand was also in there, then pulling her bedroom door open in time to hear her mother's next words.

"You're the one who told the muggle news people that you were leaving for school today," her mother said and Anna came down the stairs. Her mother was using a mirror in the hallway to put on some earrings, and she turned at the approaching noise. "There are reporters outside. they will get suspicious if you aren't seen leaving the house."

"No they won't, they'll just think I left early," Anna said, rolling her eyes. "You just want to be on the news again."

"There's no such thing as bad publicity," Anna's mother said, straightening her shirt. "You could have put in more of an effort."

"I overslept," Anna said, her eyes narrowing. "Someone kept me up half the night."

"It was a very good opportunity," the woman said, hands on her hips. "Your manager said-"

"I don't care," Anna interrupted the rant her mother was sure to launch into. "I told you I didn't want a manager in the first place."

"It's necessary," her mother said, frowning.

"Can we just go, please?" Anna said, walking towards the door to peek outside through the blinds. Sure enough, there were a few people standing on the other side of the gate to the driveway, holding cameras or other recording devices. Anna sighed. "What should we do with my trunk?"

"I'll shrink it for now," her mother said, pulling her wand out of her own purse and tapping the trunk twice sharply while muttering the incantation. They watched as it shrank until it was only a few inches long. Anna picked it up off the floor and slipped it into her purse.

"All set," she said, going to the door. Her mother pushed the button to let the limo driver pull up to the house, which unfortunately also gave the reporters entry to the grounds.

Anna pulled open the door and gave the cameramen a wide smile.

"Anna! Where do you go to school?"

"When will you be back?"

"When are you releasing your next album?"

"Can we get a picture?"

"Sure," Anna said to the man who had asked the last question. She stood still, trying not to blink in the flashes. She exchanged a few polite words with them, then waved after a moment andcontinued to walk down the steps to the waiting car.

The cameras continued to flash until the limo had pulled off the grounds.

"That was very nice, well done," her mother said, patting Anna's knee. "Very polite."

"They are still going to be there when you get home you know," Anna commented, leaning back in the seat.

"In about ten minutes all of them will suddenly remember other things they have to do," her mother said, brushing off the comment.

The trip to the station was quick, and they made it to the barrier within minutes. Unfortunately, arriving in a limo wasn't exactly the most conspicuous way to get there and it only took a few minutes for a crowd of teenaged girls to gather around her asking for pictures. She obliged for a few moments, letting a couple of them take pictures and signing a few pieces of paper for them, then she told them she had to go to the bathroom just to escape. Inside the bathrooms, her mother chuckled.

"They really do love you," she said, grinning.

"How are we supposed to get onto the platform if everyone is watching?" Anna asked, glancing at the large clock visible through the high bathroom windows. They only had ten minutes before the train left. Anna's mom peeked out of the bathroom for a moment.

"They're gone for now," she said. "The barrier is only a few feet to the left, just walk straight into it and keep your head down. Come on."

They left the bathroom, both walking quickly, and before she knew it, Anna was face to face with the Hogwarts Express. She relaxed a little, taking in the train and the people, some in cloaks. This was really where she felt comfortable. In the muggle world she was always worried she was going to let something slip, but here she could be herself.

"I've already talked with Headmistress McGonagall," Anna's mother said, drawing the girls attention back to her. "She said it'll be alright if you leave school some weekends so if there's a really good opportunity I'll send you an owl about it."

"Mum," Anna began, wanting to tell the woman that she would rather focus on school for now. She had her NEWT's to study for after all.

"I told you she went here!" a nearby voice kept her from talking further. "Boarding school and September first? I knew it was Hogwarts."

Anna looked over to see a small girl, first or second year, talking to her friend. When they saw her looking, they waved and smiled. Anna smiled back and they took that as permission to approach her.

"Anna Marie?" One of the girls asked tentatively. Anna smiled and nodded, bending down a little so she was closer to that girls height. "I saw you on the telly, you are amazing!"

"Thanks!" Anna said, her face softening a little. "What's your name?"

"Amy, and this is Sarah," the girl said. "We're in Ravenclaw."

"Me too," Anna said, smiling. "Did you want a picture?"

"Yes please," the girl said, nodding quickly. A woman who must have been the girl's mother came over with a camera, and Anna crouched down with one arm over each girls shoulder and smiled. The train whistle sounded and right as the flash went off, a blonde boy walked in front of the camera.

"Oh sorry," the small girl's mother said, then snapped another picture.

"See you on the train," Anna said to the two girls who quickly ran off chattering.

"Bye Anna," her mum said. "I'll see you for Christmas or hopefully sooner."

"Mum, take it easy with the interviews for a while please," Anna said, walking with her mother towards the train. "I just want to focus on school."

"Yes yes fine," her mum said. "But you have to stay in the public eye. You're just starting out and you have to stay on top."

"Mum," Anna began again, but the train whistle cut her off again. She climbed up into one of the carriage doors. "I'll see you," she settled for, knowing her mother wouldn't listen to anything else.

"Love you," her mother called as the train started to move.

"Love you too," she called back, then ducked into the carriage, pulling the door closed as she did so. It wasn't unoccupied as she had thought, but rather, the blonde boy who had interrupted their photo earlier sat there, peering at her tentatively. She recognized him, of course. After the last two years of war, she would recognize any of the Slytherins. They all had enjoyed the Carrow's lessons too much. Well, that wasn't exactly true, she had seen the flinches and grimaces at some of the things the adults had made them do, but they hadn't protested anything.

After the final battle the year before, all the seventh years were invited to repeat their final year if they wanted to take their NEWT's. Nearly all of them had returned as it was difficult to get a job in the wizarding world without finishing school.

"Hello," she said after a moment of thought. This boy, Malfoy, had been on the wrong side of the war, but surely if he were here instead of in Azkaban, he couldn't have been too bad. He didn't reply to her, instead he looked her over for a moment, then raised an eyebrow and returned to reading a book that had been in his lap. She shrugged to herself, then sat and pulled her shrunken trunk from her bag, using her wand to enlarge it again, then she fished through it for her school robes and a book. When she was done, she hefted it up into the luggage rack, then sat on the free bench seat and opened her book.

She had barely gotten through the first chapter when the door was pulled open. She looked up, then sighed as she heard giggling. The blonde boy, who she couldn't remember the first name of off the top of her head, looked up with a scowl.

"Anna Marie?" One of the girls outside asked. Anna sighed to herself, then smiled and gestured for them to come in. There were three of them this time.

"Hello," she said kindly. She really didn't mind when younger kids came up to her. She liked that they looked up to her, it made her feel important, but she had hoped no one at school would recognize her and that had clearly gone out the window now.

"Can I get your autograph?" One girl asked, her face nervous.

"Of course," Anna said, patting the bench beside her. The girl bounced over and sat beside her, then pulled out a muggle pen and a notebook. "What's your name?"

"Elizabeth Anderson," the girls said, smiling. Anna wrote out the girls name, followed by a short message of one of the many 'inspirational quotes' her mother had made her memorize for just such an occasion, then finished it off with her own signature.

"There you go Elizabeth," Anna said, keeping the smile on her face as she handed the notebook back.

"Thank you so much," the girl said. "Could we get a picture with you?"

"Sure," Anna said, accepting the camera the girl held out to her. The other three girls gathered around her and Anna held the camera out in front of them and snapped a picture, as she had the longest arms out of the group.

"You were really good on 'Good Morning America'," one of the other girls said excitedly. "I made my mum record it and I watched a hundred times."

"Thank you," Anna said, handing the camera back to the first girl.

"My friends will never believe I met you," the third girl said, grinning.

"Make sure you don't tell them about Hogwarts," Anna said, raising one of her eyebrows.

"Of course not," the girl said, and the others nodded.

"Good," Anna said. "Do you mind if I get back to my book now?"

"Yes thank you!" The first girl said, gesturing the others out of the carriage, closing the door behind her. Anna sighed and went back to her book.

By the third chapter, the door had been opened twice more, by half blood and muggle born children as old as sixth years. Finally she just set aside her book, realizing that it was better to let them all get their pictures and autographs in now instead of at the feast. She didn't let her growing annoyance show though, it wasn't their fault that she was getting a headache, and her mother had told her over and over how important it was to be kind to her fans for at least the first year.

The fifth time the door opened, the blond boy stood up and glared at the four third years who stared up at him with fear in their eyes.

"Unless the train is crashing I don't want to see another person in this carriage," he said in a low voice. "Get out." They turned and fled, and Anna chuckled as the door slammed shut. He turned to glare at her as well, and she shrugged.

"Sorry about them," she said. "I had hoped they wouldn't recognize me."

"And what, pray tell, would the recognize you from?" He asked, plopping back down onto his bench.

"Oh, I was just on a muggle television program," Anna said, smiling. It was nice that he didn't know who she was.

"Oh," he said in a disinterested tone as he picked his book up again.

The train ride was quiet for at least two hours, and Anna had gotten through almost half her book before anyone dared to open the carriage door again. The boy glared at them and it was shut again quickly. Anna had taken out her iPod to listen to some music and didn't even notice the door opening.

"So who are you, anyway?" The boy asked, making Anna pull out one of her earbuds. The iPod was by far her favorite muggle device, and she had used it all summer as much as she could.

"What?" She asked, not having heard the full question. He repeated himself, and she chuckled. "Anna Prewett."

"Prewett? That's a pureblood name isn't it?" He asked.

"Yeah," Anna said. "My dad was the youngest boy in the family, and my mum was a Lovegood before she married."

"Hm," he said, frowning. "If you are pureblood why are you going on muggle television shows?"

"I like to sing and the muggles are really big into music," Anna said, shutting her book with her finger to hold her place. "It's a huge industry for them. I just sort of got… sucked into it."

"Music?" He asked, his tone distasteful. "Whats the use in that?" His question was rhetorical but she smiled and answered anyway.

"Music is amazing. It can completely change a persons mood. It can be calming, upbeat, inspiring, sad, anything you want really," she said, leaning forward a little in her enthusiasm. "Don't you listen to music?"

"Only at my mother's house parties," he said, shrugging.

"What's your name again?" She asked. "I know you are a Malfoy but I can't remember your first name."

"It's Draco," he said, his mouth twitching up at the corners. He was probably used to everyone knowing who he was, much like she had gotten used to it over the last few months.

"It's nice to meet you," she said, holding her hand out to him. He looked at it for a moment, a confused expression on his face, then shook it slowly.

The rest of the train ride was peaceful with Draco driving away all the random visitors. The two didn't talk much, but they did converse a little about classes or other subjects, as technically they would be in the same year now.

She was a little surprised that he was talking to her at all. From what she could remember he was one of the most outspoken Slytherins against the Gryffindors. Usually the Slytherins and Ravenclaws got along just fine because neither house spoke to the other, but she had seen him being rude to the younger students of all houses in the years before. But she knew war changed people.

She herself had not been very occupied in the war. She had been at school when the last battle started of course, but she had been one of the people who helped to lead the younger students from the school to the village, then she had stayed in Hogsmeade throughout the fighting to help the pub owner and a few others defend it from death eaters until the children were all apparated away. By the time she had gotten back up to the school with the others who had stayed, the fighting was mostly over. She had then helped Madam Pomfrey to bandage the injured people. No one she knew well was among the dead, and she was very thankful that she had escaped the war with no loses in her immediate family.

She knew that this year would be different from the previous ones. There was no way that they would keep everything the same after the war. There had been a lot of renovations to the school as well, since a lot of it had been demolished by curses and spells.

"So are you the only Slytherin who came back this year?" Anna asked after a lull in their conversation. Both books had been set aside by that point and they had just finished a discussion about NEWT level charms, her best subject.

"No, there are two others that I know of. Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson. There might be others too," he said, his face carefully blank.

"Oh," Anna said, shrugging. "I assumed you were the only one and that's why you are sitting in here with me instead of with them."

"Yeah well," he said, and she was a little surprised to see him shrug. He seemed too uptight to do anything like that. "After the war no one was in a hurry to associate with my family again."

"Oh yeah, I guess that makes sense," Anna said, turning back to look out the window. The sun was just barely setting, which meant they had at least an hour left of the ride.

"I must confess, I'm a little surprised that you are speaking to me at all," he said, drawing her attention back to him. She raised an eyebrow.

"Why wouldn't I talk to you? I sort of crashed your solitary carriage ride so it would be rude to not talk to you," she said, chuckling. "And besides, it's not like I'm going to get sent to Azkaban for talking to you. Probably."

"Probably," he agreed, chuckling a little too. She smiled.

"Besides, you are pleasant to talk to when you aren't bullying first years," she added, then watched with satisfaction as his face turned red.

Anna walked beside Draco from the platform in Hogsmeade to the carriages, then rode with him up to the castle. It was nice, being almost alone, as most people avoided the blonde boy. Anna was content to just sit in silence, and neither of them tried to start a conversation.

As they followed other students into the hall, they split ways without a word, each one going to sit at their house tables.

The hall was much quieter than previous years. The long tables were emptier, and the students had left room for their friends who wouldn't be returning, either because they didn't want to, or they weren't able.

After nearly ten minutes of subdued chatter, a group of wide eyed first years was led up the middle isle by Professor McGonagall, who led them at the front of the room and moved to stand behind the podium.

"Good evening," she began in a solemn tone, and the room fell into complete silence as the students looked up at their new headmistress. She looked over them with a grave face. "Many of you have suffered losses over the last few years. The war has affected each and every one of you and it is something that we will not forget, but we must move on from it. We can not let the past keep us from living and moving forward and growing. In the spirit of growth and recovery, there will be several changes made to Hogwarts this year."

A low muttering broke out over the tables, and Anna looked around her for her room mates, wondering what they would think of these words, but the students on either side of her were second or third years, and she didn't know them well enough to make a comment.

"To begin, there will no longer be four houses," McGonagall said, and had to pause as loud, incredulous shouts came from the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables. The Ravenclaws were a bit quieter in their denial, and only the younger Slytherins were undignified to voice their opinions aloud.

"Quiet please," McGonagall called, and the hall fell silent again. "As I was saying, we will no longer have four houses. House rivalries have led to prejudices and arguments, and it is something we hope to avoid in the future. In the hopes that we can build a better sense of unity and comradeship, we have formed a new dormitory system. We are one school and we will all stand together from this point forward."

The room was silent, Anna glanced around at the shocked faces of her classmates, unsurprised. She had assumed the faculty would make some grand gesture of unity this year, though she had never thought it would take this form.

"This summer while rebuilding the castle, there were several new portions added, and many classrooms have been moved to new areas. When you receive your schedules tomorrow, you will also receive maps to find your way. Dormitories are now divided into year, returning seventh years are housing with the current seventh years for this year. Each year's dormitories are on that corresponding floor, along the north side of the building."

Anna nearly let out a sigh. Even with the new system of rooming she would still have to climb up to the seventh floor. Hopefully some of her classes would also be on that floor, otherwise she would have to carry her whole days worth of textbooks with her to every class. Just like all the previous years. At least she would stay fit, she supposed, with all the stair climbing she would be doing.

"Each of the rooms houses two people, and shares a bathroom with a connecting suite. Each year's dormitories will have a central common room. Students fourth year and above will be permitted to choose who they room with. First, second, and third years, you will be paired with another student in your year curtsy of the sorting hat."

Another round of muttering broke out in the hall, mostly from older students.

"There will be plenty of time to talk to each other after dinner," McGonagall said, waving a hand for silence. "Because there have been so many changes this year, classes will not begin until the day after tomorrow, to give you all time to settle in. Now, before we eat, if you would all please stand and move to the outskirts of the room?"

The students stood to do as they were told, with much talking and noise. When they were all along the outside of the room, McGonagall waved her hand and the four long house tables disappeared. In their place, fourteen smaller, rectangular tables lined the hall, seven on each side leaving a central aisle up to the head table. Each of the tables had a number floating above it, and Anna was glad to see that the seventh years were at the back of the hall and the first years at the front.

"Now, first, second, and third years, please line up here at the front," McGonagall called over the talking. "The rest of you, take a seat at your designated tables."

Anna made her way to the back of the hall, dodging around younger students making their way to the front. When they were all where they were instructed to be, McGonagall began reading names off a list, starting with the third years. When they put on the battered sorting hat, it would call out a dorm number rather than a house name. As she watched, Anna couldn't help but wish the older students were also being paired, because she had no idea who she would want to spend the year sharing a dorm with. The other four girls in her dorm would no doubt pair off with each other, since they had all been much more social with each other than she had been in previous years.

When all the younger students had been given a number, McGonagall took a seat, and food appeared on the tables. Anna ate very little, too nervous about who she would be rooming with to have much of an appetite. Really it wouldn't be so bad if she ended up by herself, then she wouldn't have to worry about annoying anyone accidentally, but the seventh year table was a little crowded, with the returning students. It wasn't as full as it should have been of course, not with the number of people who had died in the war, but it was still fuller than the other tables.

When the meal was over, McGonagall stood again, and the hall fell silent.

"I know that a lot of you will have questions, and we will address those tomorrow morning, so please be on time for breakfast. Now, seventh years, if you will follow Professor Flitwick out of the hall, he will show you all to your new dormitory. Sixth years, please follow Professor Sinistra-" she continued on, but Anna had stood to follow the rest of her table out of the hall and she didn't listen.

The group was nearly silent on the trek up to the seventh floor. The north wall was the one that had been between Gryffindor tower and Ravenclaw tower, and it had previously housed classrooms, mostly unused. Now it was a solid grey stone wall lined with portraits and tapestries. Flitwick came to a stop in front of a portrait of two small children playing in a field of flowers. Both girls had dark black hair that flew behind them as they chased butterflies and giggled. Professor Flitwick tapped his wand against the frame twice, and the girls turned to look at him, pausing in their game.

"The password is Dittany," the short man said in his squeaky voice. The little girls flashed identical grins, and the portrait swung open, pulling bits of the wall with it, to reveal a normal door sized entrance. The group followed Flitwick inside, and along the walls, lamps burst into light.

The common room was smaller than the Ravenclaw house common room had been, Anna noticed, but it was homey and warm.

The room had been slit into four sections, each corner had a group of white arm chairs positioned around a fireplace. In the center of each group of chairs, there were area rugs, one blue, one green, one red, and one yellow. Anna supposed the professors had thought that making all the houses room together was enough change for now, and had given them all their own little areas to make them more comfortable.

There were tall windows along the side opposite the door, looking out over what Anna was sure would be the quidditch pitch, though it was too dark to see at the moment. The windows all had long white drapes pulled to the sides, and the sills housed various potted plants. In front of the windows between what was clearly the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw corners, there were several small tables, probably for studying at. Between the other corners were doorways that probably led off to their dorms. There were about fifty of them in the year now, and most of them were standing silently, though a few of them had paired off. Flitwick left them after making sure they were all inside.

"Um, what should we do if we don't know who to room with?" A girl asked. She was still wearing a yellow tie, marking her as a Hufflepuff.

"Good question," a boy that Anna recognized to be Blaise Zabini replied with a slight sneer. A girl beside him elbowed him, and he dropped the sneer. "How many rooms are there? Maybe we have enough to room alone."

"There are 36 rooms, two floors, connected at both ends with staircases," a boy called from the back of the group a moment later. From his disheveled appearance, Anna assumed he had just run down to the end of the hall and back.

"There are 63 of us here, so we will all have to share, except one," Anna recognized the girl who spoke to be Ginny Weasley. "Should we just draw names to decide?"

"But what if we've already picked?" A Ravenclaw boy asked, frowning. Some muttering broke out at that.

"Okay," Blaise Zabini called, gathering everyone's attention. "If you have already decided who to room with, go pick your rooms. Anyone who's left will write their name on a piece of paper and put it into this bowl and we will draw to see who you will room with and which number room you will have."

"Who put him in charge," a voice behind Anna muttered, and she turned a little to see the speaker.

"Oh Ron," a girl sighed. "Don't start anything. Just go with it alright?" Anna recognized that voice as Hermione. She had only spoken to the girl a couple times, but there was no way Anna wouldn't recognize her. She was surprised the three 'war-heros' had returned to school. She would have thought they would have their pick of jobs, NEWT scores or no.

"Which side should be the boys dorms?" Someone across the room asked.

"Does it matter?" Someone else asked. "If the floors are connected anyway, just pick any room."

"I don't think the professors would want us rooming with the opposite gender," Hermione piped up from behind Anna.

"Well since they didn't specify, that's their own fault," a Slytherin girl Anna recognized as Astoria Greengrass said with a shrug and a sidelong glance at Draco, who was standing silently behind Blaise.

"How about we keep the rooms gender specific, but the suites can be co-ed?" someone that Anna couldn't see suggested.

"Okay, everyone who already knows who you want to room with, go pick your rooms," Blaise called. "Leave your dorm doors open. When everyone has picked, we will list the empty rooms to assign to people who don't know who they want to room with."

There was a surge of movement as about half the people in the common room filtered into the hallways.

"Hermione, want to room with me?" Anna heard Ginny ask behind her.

"Sure," Hermione said.

"Should Harry and Ron take the adjoining room?" Ginny asked.

"Absolutely not," Hermione said, and Anna nearly giggled at the tone. "I do not want to share a bathroom with Ronald. He is absolutely disgusting."

"I heard that," Ron said, and Anna could see Hermione's face turn red out of the corner of her eye. She giggled at that. "I'm not that bad. We all shared a tent all last year and it was fine."

"Oh alright," Hermione said, and the four of them headed up the hallway to the right. Anna sighed and turned back to the room at large. She wished she had friends that close.

"Alright, whoever's left write your name on a piece of parchment and put it into this bowl," Blaise called to the remaining people, who all began to line up to do so. Anna scribbled her name on a scrap of parchment and dropped it into the bowl, then went back to the Ravenclaw corner of the room to wait.

A boy from Slytherin that was in Anna's year named David Marley went to list the unoccupied rooms and what gender the others in the suite wanted and were.

Anna let out a yawn as she waited, it had been a long day and she hadn't gotten a lot of sleep the night before. A Hufflepuff girl named Hannah drew the names and called off room numbers as she did so.

"Anna Prewett, room number four," she called at last, and Anna made her way out of the room gladly, wanting nothing more than to curl up in her bed and sleep for the next twelve hours.

She found her trunk at the end of one of the four poster beds in her new room, and glanced over at the other girl as she entered. She hadn't listened to hear who her new room mate would be.

"Hey," Anna said as she entered the room.

"Hi," the other girl said, sweeping her long dark hair over her shoulder as she held out a hand to shake. Anna shook it as they looked each other over. "I'm Pansy."

"Anna," Anna replied. She had known of Pansy before now, but they had never talked. She had a slightly upturned nose and her face was sharp, thin mouth drawn back in a slight sneer.

"Prewett was it?" Pansy asked, turning back to her bed. The rooms were wide enough to fit the two beds against the walls, and two desks in-between them. Two tall wardrobes were positioned on either side of the door, and a door set between the foot of Anna's bed and her wardrobe led to the bathroom. It was currently bolted shut from their side, and the door handle glowed a faint green color.

"Yes," Anna replied, opening her trunk.

"I don't think I've met you before," Pansy commented, also digging through her things.

"Probably not," Anna said, relaxing a little. "I used to be a Ravenclaw and I kept to myself mostly."

"Your dorms were all the way up here?" Pansy asked, a little incredulously. "How did you manage climbing up here every day?" Anna let out a little chuckle at that.

"I carried all my books with me so I only had to come up at the end of classes," Anna said. "It's a real workout climbing up though. Your legs will get really toned."

"Well I guess that's a plus," Pansy said, giggling. "Did you hear who our dorm mates are?"

"No, I left as soon as my name was called," Anna said, pulling her sleepwear out of her trunk at last. She would wait until the next day to unpack completely.

"I hope they are girls, boys are just too messy," Pansy said, sliding the bolt on the bathroom door back and pulling it open. As soon as she stepped inside the handle began to glow red, evidently signifying that someone was inside. Pansy banged against the far door, and Anna followed her inside, leaving her armful of clothes on her bed. The bathroom was a good size, and there were two large mirrors on the wall, with a sink in front of each one. On the other side of the room, against the wall that was shared with the hallway, there was a walled off shower, and a toilet with a door that shut so that someone could use it while there were other people in the room.

The door Pansy was knocking on flew open to reveal Blaise.

"God, woman, what do you want?" He asked, spotting Pansy. Anna chuckled, and Blaise looked her over for a moment, brow raised.

"Just wanted to meet our new suite mates," Pansy said with a sniff.

"It's me and Draco," Blaise said. "And who might you be?" His voice switched tones from normal to flirty so quickly that it caught Anna off guard.

"Anna Prewett," Anna said, raising an eyebrow.

"It's lovely to meet you, Anna Prewett," Blaise said, grabbing her hand to lift it to his lips. Another arm hit Blaise upside the head, making him drop Anna's hand with a yelp.

"Stop it," Draco said, frowning at him. "Behave."

"What are you, my mother?" Blaise asked, rubbing the back of his head as he walked back into their room.

"If I was your mother I would have drowned you at birth," Draco called. "Now that we all know each other, we are going to bed. Goodnight." He pulled the door closed behind him and the girls could hear their lock slide into place. They made their way back to their own room, closing the bathroom door behind them and locking it as well.

"He's right, we should get to sleep," Pansy said, her voice a little subdued. "Anna, are you going to be okay sharing a room with three Slytherins?"

"Former Slytherins," Anna corrected, though she was a little surprised Pansy had bothered to ask. "And yes, it's fine."

"If you're sure," Pansy said, shrugging. They were silent as they both changed into their pajamas. Anna's consisted of long yoga pants and a tank top, Pansy's of shorts and a t-shirt.

"We will have to plan out a shower schedule," Pansy said as they climbed into their separate beds.

"We can do that tomorrow," Anna said. "And I think we should come up with some sort of rule about visitors too."

"Probably," Pansy agreed with a yawn. "Tomorrow."

"Right," Anna said, and they both fell silent. She was asleep within minutes.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Anna woke to the sun on her face and for a moment, she didn't know where she was. She climbed out of bed, glad that there was a rug over the stone to keep the cold away. The room was different in the bright sunlight, the walls were the same grey stone as the rest of the school, but the sun brought out the brown tones in the dark wood of the desks and beds.

Pansy was still asleep in her bed, snoring lightly, her curtains open as they had been last night. Anna went to use the bathroom, then returned and began to toss her clothes out of her trunk onto the bed. Her mother had shrunk a lot of the new things she had been given so that she could bring them all along, though Anna wasn't sure what she would need so many clothes for. The clock hanging above the dormitory door said it was too early to go down for breakfast, so Anna took her time putting her things away, then went to take a shower, once her books were placed neatly on her desk.

She forgot herself a little while she showered, or at least, she forgot about her new room mates. Her old ones had been used to her singing at all hours and she forgot that these people wouldn't be used to it. She sang through a couple songs she knew from the radio over the summer, and then fell back to humming as she got out and wrapped a towel around her hair so it wouldn't drip on her clothes. Finally she went back to her room, and as soon as she opened the bathroom door, the matching one on the other side bust open and banged against the bathroom counter. Anna turned to see Blaise, hair messed from sleep, scowling at her.

"Do have to be so loud so early in the morning?" He growled and Anna blushed and looked at her feet.

"Oh shut up Blaise," Pansy called, walking up behind Anna. "You're just jealous that her voice doesn't crack the mirrors when she tries to sing."

"My voice is beautiful, thank you very much," Blaise said with a sniff.

"He sounds like a drowning cat," Pansy stage whispered to Anna, who giggled. Blaise gave a mockingly offended gasp. "Where did you learn to sing like that?" Pansy continued, ignoring him as she turned to Anna.

"I dunno," Anna said, shrugging embarrassedly. "I took some lessons a few summers ago."

"Well feel free to wake me up with singing anytime you want," Pansy said, moving past her into the bathroom. "It's much more pleasant than my alarm."

"I didn't mean to wake anyone," Anna said, frowning. "I just sing all the time, and I guess I forgot that I have new room mates now who aren't used to it."

"We'll get used to it," Pansy assured her.

"Or we could get used to sleeping," Blaise argued from his doorway.

"I don't hear Draco complaining," Pansy said, crossing her arms.

"That's because he charms his bed hangings to not let sound in," Blaise said, glaring back into his room.

"Then you can do the same," Pansy said. "Now get out, I'm going to take a shower."

"Do I have to leave?" Blaise asked, wriggling his eyebrows at her. Pansy rolled her eyes and shoved him out the door, locking it from the inside.

"Sorry for waking you," Anna said again, unwrapping her hair from her towel.

"No worries," Pansy said, pulling her pajamas off over her head. Anna blushed and turned back into her room. Pansy certainly wasn't shy about changing in front of others. Anna had gotten used to changing in her dorm when the other girls were there, but usually they were changing too and no one payed her any attention. She would never take her clothes off while another person was standing right in front of her. She would have to get used to Pansy's openness.

Nearly ten minutes later, a knock came at their door, and Anna went to pull it open. It was a little after seven, and she had been about to do a charm on her hair to dry it.

"Good morning!" Hermione Granger was on the other side of the door, standing next to Luna Lovegood.

"Hello," Anna said, smiling at them.

"Oh hi Anna," Luna said in her usual airy tone of voice. "I didn't know you were back this year."

"Hello Luna," Anna said, smiling. She had always liked her slightly younger cousin. She was unusual, and had a calming presence.

"Here," Hermione said, holding a small stack of papers out to Anna. "Professor- I mean, Headmistress McGonagall dropped these off with the prefects this morning and said to hand them out."

Anna took them and glanced over them for a moment before Luna spoke again.

"There's a list of rules," Luna said softly. "And name tags for the doors."

"The prefects have orange stars by their names so we are easy to find if you need anything," Hermione continued. "And the head boy and girl have purple stars."

"Who are the head students this year?" Anna asked, still looking over the papers.

"Ginny Weasley and Curtis Harper, from Hufflepuff," Hermione recited as though it had been a teacher asking.

"Kay," Anna answered, not really paying attention.

"Fill out the name tags and put them up on your door before breakfast please," Hermione continued. "And read over the list of rules too please. And don't forget to be on time to breakfast too."

"Right," Anna said, looking up at her with a half smile.

"Who's in your adjoining room?" Luna asked airily.

"Uh, Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini," Anna said. "And Pansy Parkinson is in here with me."

Hermione froze for a moment, her eyes unfocused, and Anna frowned in concern.

"Would you mind giving these to them for us?" Luna asked, holding out another small pile of papers.

"Yes of course," Anna said, watching a slight sheen of sweat develop over Hermione's face as she clutched Luna's arm. "Are you alright Hermione?"

"What?" She asked, shaking her head a couple times. "Yes, of course. I'm fine. Thank you."

With that she turned and walked farther down the hall.

"Luna?" Anna asked, looking after the other girl.

"It's not my place to tell," Luna said, her voice a little clearer than usual. "I'd imagine she doesn't have very pleasant memories of the last time she saw a Malfoy."

"Oh," Anna said, nodding, though she didn't really understand. "Okay."

Luna turned and drifted after Hermione, and Anna shut the door just as the bathroom door was opened.

"Who was that you were talking to?" Pansy asked, coming out clad in only a towel.

"Some Prefects dropped these off," Anna said, tossing the papers onto her desk. "It's a list of rules and other information. And some name tags for the door." Anna picked a quill up off her desk and dipped it in ink to write her name on one of the tags, then put the other onto Pansy's desk.

"Oh, this is so cute!" Pansy said from behind her. Anna turned to see the other girl leaning over her still unmade bed to look at some of the clothes Anna hadn't gotten around to putting away yet. She was picking up the sleeve of a blouse Anna had worn to one of her interviews last summer.

"Really?" Anna asked, surprised. Pansy was a pureblood, and had been in Slytherin, so Anna hadn't expected her to have any taste in muggle clothing. "It's muggle though," she felt the need to clarify.

"I know," Pansy said, picking it up off the bed. "We've been living as muggles all summer, and I have grown to like some of their styles."

"Living as muggles?" Anna asked, intrigued. "Why?"

"It was part of the stipulation from the ministry to keep all of us Slytherins out of Azkaban when our parents were sent," Pansy said, her voice growing serious as she dropped the blouse and went over to her own trunk. "Finish school, pay a lot of fines, gather a new appreciation for muggles by living among them, get a job, become a functioning member of society, etcetera etcetera."

"I didn't know that," Anna said, sitting on her bed as she thought. "All of you lived as muggles?"

"Well, not all of us," Pansy said, pulling on her underwear. "All the returning Slytherins did, and some of the current seventh years. And there were a few who didn't come back at the end of summer. I'm not really sure if they stayed in the muggle world or went abroad."

"Wow," Anna said, playing with the blouse material in her hands as she thought. "I had no idea."

"It's been in the papers all summer," Pansy said, chuckling a little as she pulled a black skirt on and began shuffling through her trunk for something to wear with it.

"You can borrow this if you want," Anna offered, holding the shirt out towards Pansy, who looked up at her with surprise. Anna tossed it to her, and Pansy stared at it for a moment, then pulled it on. "I guess I've been a bit out of the loop this summer," Anna continued, looking around to see where she had left her wand. "My mum dragged me off to America."

"I've never been," Pansy said softly, smoothing the shirt down over her stomach. It fit a little tightly on her, since Anna was a bit slimmer, and had smaller breasts then her new friend, but it still looked nice.

"It's… different," Anna said, smiling a little. She had liked America, though she would have liked it more if she'd had time to look around a bit, rather then running from interview to studio to photo shoot to performance. "It's nice though."

"What are these for?" Pansy asked after a moment of silence, gesturing to the second pile of papers.

"Oh, those are for the boys," Anna said. "We are supposed to give it to them."

"I'll do it," Pansy said, scooping the papers up and dancing across the the bathroom door, the handle of which was glowing green.

"Blaise!" Pansy shouted before knocking on their door. It seemed that it wouldn't open from their side, even if both locks were open.

Anna saw Draco pull the door open over Pansy's head and laughed at his murderous expression.

"Your voice makes me want to cut my ears off," he said, pushing past her. His hair was ruffled, which surprised Anna a bit. She had never seen the boy looking less than presentable, though she supposed she had never seen him so early in the day. They still had a half hour until breakfast started. Draco walked around Pansy and slammed the door to the little room with the toilet inside.

"Blaise!" Pansy called again after tossing a glare at the door. Anna laughed and spotted her wand on the counter. She picked it up and set about styling her hair, since it was mostly dry by that point. It took her only a few seconds to charm the blonde locks into loose curls, and she went back to her room to get her makeup bag, then dumped it out on the counter on her and Pansy's side of the room. She was surprised to hear the shower turn on behind her, cutting off the slightly raised tones of argument between Pansy and Blaise in the doorway to the boys room. She turned towards the shower niche before realizing that probably wasn't a good idea. The door, which looked clear when it was open, was solid when closed, and she was glad it was. She was not used to these Slytherins and their lack of modesty. She turned back to the mirror and brushed on some natural colored eyeshadow. She was almost done when the shower shut off, and she refrained from looking in the mirror as she heard the door open. Instead she leaned forward and brushed a thin layer of color onto her lips, darkening them just a little, then she stood back to look at herself to see if there was anything she had missed.

"Wow you did that really fast," Pansy said from beside her, looking at their reflection in the mirror.

"Yeah, I learned this summer," Anna said, smiling. "I wasn't given a lot of time. My mum likes to rush."

"You'll have to show me how you got your eyeliner to look like that," Pansy said.

"Sure," Anna said, smiling. She had never had a friend like Pansy before, one that was interested in makeup and clothes and girly things. Well, Anna herself hadn't really been interested in those things either until she started singing professionally. "It's actually really easy, theres a trick to it."

"If you two girls are done braiding each others hair and and painting each others nails, get out," Blaise said in a light tone from behind them. "I want to take a shower."

"Draco didn't care if we were in here," Pansy said, ignoring the order.

"Yeah well, I'm so much more modest than Drake is," Blaise said, fluttering his eyelashes at them in the mirror.

"Yeah right," Pansy said, but she turned and left, Anna following behind. "See you down at breakfast, don't be late."

"Yes mother," Blaise said, shutting the door behind them. Anna chuckled, then waited a moment for Pansy to finish drying her hair with a charm. Her dark hair hung pin straight down to her shoulders, and she didn't bother to put her school robes on over her outfit. Anna didn't grab hers either, figuring there was no need since there wouldn't be any classes that day. Pansy wrote her name on her door tag, then both girls let the room, sticking their name tags onto the door as the left. They met Draco in the hallway, and the three of them walked silently to the common room, then down to breakfast.

* * *

Anna sat at the seventh year table in the back of the great hall between Pansy and Draco. Draco remained silent for the whole meal, but Pansy chattered away at her as she ate, Anna nodding once in awhile to let Pansy know she was listening. Pansy, it seemed, had gotten a muggle job over the summer, though with the ministry rules she could have gotten a wizarding one if she had wanted. Pansy had worked at a little boutique for the summer months, a job Anna knew to be an entry level job that any muggle could work without accreditation, but Pansy was proud of her time there. She had picked up a pretty good sense of muggle fashion, and she had even learned a little bit of the slang the London muggles used, which Anna had learned throughout the last couple years of working with them to record her first album. Thankfully, Pansy didn't know anything about muggle music, so she had no idea that Anna was technically famous among the muggle singers.

Anna did notice that while Pansy and Blaise had seemed friendly enough with Draco when in the privacy of their rooms, neither of them spoke to him, and Blaise had chosen to sit on the other side of Pansy rather than the empty seat beside Draco, even though it put him directly beside a group of ex-Gryffindors who glared at him.

"Oh, here come the schedules," Pansy said at last, making Anna look up from her half empty bowl of oatmeal. "I hope we have a couple classes together. Daphne and Tracey didn't come back this year so I don't really have anyone to talk to in class anymore."

"Pans, how do you have time to eat when you never shut your mouth for more than two seconds at a time?" Blaise asked, accepting a blank paper from Flitwick, the new Deputy Headmaster. Pansy ignored him as she took her own paper and looked over her new schedule. Anna took a paper, then watched as black lines and words appeared on it at her touch, forming into her new class schedule for the year. It was very much the same as the previous year's schedule had been for her. Charms, Transfiguration, Potions, Arithmancy, Astronomy, Herbology, History of Magic, and Defense Against the Dark Arts. All the classes that required at least an Exceeds Expectations on NEWT's in order for her to become a healer, which was the profession she had chosen before the whole music thing had taken off in the muggle world. She wasn't sure why she had stayed on that path of classes, she knew she could change them, even drop a few, since it was only required for them to take five NEWT level classes to graduate, but Anna wanted to be busy. She thought it would make a good excuse to her mother about why she didn't have time to go to an interview or talk show every weekend.

"Oh, we only have three classes together," Pansy said in a disheartened voice, looking over Anna's shoulder. "What about you Blaise? Let me see."

"I hope we have no classes together," Blaise muttered as Pansy reached to grab his schedule, successfully knocking a piece of toast out of his hands as she did so.

"What about you?" Anna asked, turning to Draco. "Can I see your schedule?"

He handed it over warily, as though he still expected her to curse him, as he had when they had begun talking on the train. She looked it over, then chuckled.

"Are you studying to be a healer?" She asked, looking over his identical schedule of classes.

"No," he said quietly, shrugging a little. "Potion brewer."

"Well it seems as though Potion Brewers and Healers have to study all the same subjects," Anna said, smiling a little as she handed his schedule back and set hers down next to it. He sighed, but didn't say anything else.

"Want to walk around and find the new classrooms?" Pansy asked, drawing Anna's attention back to her.

"Sure," Anna said, folding her schedule in half. She also wanted to find out if the old music rooms that had previously been on the fourth floor were still there. The instruments had been covered in dust, and in bad repair when Anna had first found them in her third year, but with a little practice she had been able to perform the spells to fix them and clean the room, and she had gone back any time she was feeling sad or lonely, or even stressed. Her favorite instrument had been the old piano, because she knew how to play it already, but after messing around with some of the other instruments, she had taught herself how to play quite a few of them.

It seemed that a lot of other students had the same idea as Pansy. The halls were crowded, and a little loud, as people walked around, finding their new classrooms or new parts of the castle. Many of the first years were being led around by older students, something that Anna wished had been done for her when she had been a first year.

"Are you taking Divination?" Pansy asked as they passed a classroom on the first floor.

"No," Anna said. "I took it up to fifth year, but it's kinda… i dunno. It didn't seem worth continuing," Anna said, shrugging.

"I agree, it's completely useless," Pansy said.

"But then why have you signed up for it?" Anna asked, frowning at the other girls schedule.

"Well, its really easy to get a good grade in it," Pansy said, smiling wryly. "And," she leaned in closer and lowered her voice. "Firenze is so nice to look at."

Anna laughed outright at that. She had only taken Divination with him for part of her fourth year, when he had replaced Trelawney, but she had to agree with Pansy. The centaur had a very sculpted chest and his human half was quite good looking.

"Oh, there's Charms," Pansy pointed out as they topped the stairs to the second floor. "I wonder why they moved it down here?"

"No idea," Anna said, shrugging. "They moved Arithmancy down here too." Both of those subjects had previously been on the fifth floor.

"Do you think Potions is still in the dungeons?" Anna asked as they climbed up to the third floor.

"Yeah," Pansy said, peering down at her schedule. "It says that Potions, Astronomy, Herbology, and Transfiguration will be in the same classrooms they used to be in."

"Darn," Anna muttered under her breath. "I hate the dungeons. They are always cold."

"Professor Snape said that Potions has always been in the dungeons so that when the idiot Gryffindors mess up their brewing the rest of the school would be relatively safe," Pansy said, giggling a little. Anna had to laugh at that. Professor Snape's hatred of the Gryffindors had poured over into all of his classes, even when they didn't contain any members from said house. The Ravenclaws had always had Potions with the Hufflepuffs, and there had been many lessons where Professor Snape made nasty comments about the Gryffindors.

"I wonder who is taking Defense this year," Anna commented, changing to subject. "I forgot to look at breakfast to see if there were any new professors this year."

"Well we have that class together, first thing tomorrow," Pansy said, passing by the new History of Magic classroom on the third floor as they climbed up a level. "I guess we'll see then. Oh, what's this?"

Pansy had topped the stairs to the fourth floor and peered into a darkened classroom. This room, unlike the others they had passed, was not set up with rows of desks facing the front of the room, ready for a lecture. This room, instead, had what looked like a very thick padding covering the floor, and various low writing desks placed along the walls.

"Weird," Anna said, trying to turn the door handle, but it was locked.

"Thats the new Defense room," A voice called out behind them, and both girls turned to look at the newcomer.

"Are you just following us around now Blaise?" Pansy asked, hands on her hips.

"Not even a little," he replied, grinning at them. "I just happened to be going back upstairs when I heard your ever lovely voice and came to investigate. Pansy flipped him off and turned to walk further down the hallway away from him. Blaise didn't seem bothered by her actions, and came to walk beside Anna as they caught up to Pansy.

"Transfiguration and Runes are up on the sixth floor," Blaise said as they climbed the stairs.

"I thought you said you were going back to the common room," Pansy said, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye.

"I was," Blaise said.

"Then how do you know what classrooms are on the sixth floor?" Pansy asked, topping the stairs again as she went to see if he was right.

"It says on our schedules," he said, rolling his eyes. "If you knew how to read you would know that instead of hunting them all down individually."

"I just wanted to see where they were," Pansy said, huffing as they passed the sign that stated that the Transfiguration classroom was indeed on this floor.

"Yes, because 'Sixth floor, south-west corner' is too difficult to figure out from just reading it," Blaise said.

"You don't have to be here you know," Pansy said, turning to face him, her face drawn into a scowl. "You can go hang out in your room and leave us be."

"Ah, well," Blaise began, rubbing the back of his neck and looking sheepish. "I'd rather not. Draco is there at the moment."

"Oh," Pansy said shortly, giving him an understanding look before turning to continue down the hall.

"Do you and Draco not get along?" Anna asked, confused by the interaction. Blaise seemed like he got along with nearly everyone.

"No, we get along fine," Blaise said, shrugging.

"Then why…" Anna began, but trailed off as she remembered what Draco had said on the train. After the war, no one wanted to be seen associating with Draco's family.

"It's not that I dislike Draco," Blaise said, feeling there was a bit of explanation needed. "I was glad when his name was drawn to room with me, at least I knew I'd get along with him. It's just that all of us are watched so closely now, it would look bad if… well, it's just a complicated situation."

"I understand," Anna said, nodding. "It would look bad to the public if people already under Ministry suspicion began to spend a lot of time alone together."

"Pretty much," Pansy said, looking into another classroom. This hall was nearly empty of people, there was just a small group of second years loitering near the end of it. Anna's little group had slowed their walking to remain out of earshot.

"But you didn't mind sitting near him at breakfast?" Anna asked, confused.

"Well, you were there," Blaise said. "You don't have any previous association with any of us."

"So basically I'm a buffer to keep you lot out of trouble?" Anna asked, her mouth twitching up into a half smile.

"Glad you understand," Blaise said, giving her a charming smile as they climbed up to the seventh floor. The only classes on this floor were Astronomy, in the south tower, and Divination with Trelawney, in the east tower, both in the same places they had been before, so they didn't go looking for them.

"That's not the only reason we like you," Pansy said, glancing in the unused classrooms in the south hall where they had come up. "Nearly anyone else would have thrown a fit about being roomed with three Slytherins. You didn't even make a single comment."

"Plus we are hoping you will let us cheat off you for tests," Blaise added jokingly. Anna smiled, liking his constant need to lighten a conversation.

"Just because I was in Ravenclaw doesn't mean I'm really smart," Anna said. "It just means that I'm open minded and like to learn. Cheating off me wouldn't get you perfect grades, and I'm not going to hate you all just because you came from Slytherin. Hating people takes so much energy, I don't waste that on just anybody, you have to earn it first."

Blaise laughed at that, draping an arm over her shoulders as they walked. Anna was coming to learn that this over friendly behavior was normal for him, so she didn't shrug his arm off her. Pansy gave her a genuine smile, then glanced into another door rather than continue the conversation.

"Oh, this wasn't here before was it?" She asked, pushing the door in. The three of them walked inside, and Blaise sneezed at the slight amount of dust in the room, but Anna let out an excited 'Oh!' as she looked into the room. The walls were lined with instruments on stands, and against the back wall, a piano, which she made a beeline for.

"This room used to be down on the fourth floor, I'm glad they didn't get rid of it," Anna explained, running a hand over the dusty keys. She pulled out her wand and cleared the dust from the room, then sat down on the old piano bench.

"What is this?" She turned to see what Pansy was looking at, then stood from the bench to take the guitar from the wall.

"It's an acoustic guitar," Anna explained, strumming a finger over the strings, then wincing. "And it's really out of tune." She began plucking the stings individually as she turned the pegs to tighten them.

"Can you play it?" Blaise asked, looking at the instrument in suspicion.

"Yes," Anna said, grinning as she brushed over the now tuned cords. "Guitar and piano are my best instruments, but I practically lived in the music room since I found it in third year, so I can play a lot of these others too."

"Why do they even have these here?" Pansy asked, prodding a couple piano keys. At least that instrument still seemed to be in key. "I've never heard of music classes here."

"They had them back in the early 1900's, but they stopped sometime in the 50's," Anna said. She had asked Professor Flitwick, the head of her old house, if it was alright for her to use the instruments, and he had told her a bit about the history of the place. She strummed out a few cords on the instrument in her hands, then hung it back on the wall. "There were a few other Ravenclaw's who played too. And a girl in Hufflepuff who left school in my fourth year used to come here too. They probably kept them so that the few people who want to can use them."

"What's the point?" Pansy asked, frowning as the piano gave a loud resounding twang as she pushed the keys.

"For fun," Anna said, shrugging. "I don't really find quidditch fun to watch, so I come here instead."

"I thought Ravenclaws did homework for fun," Blaise commented, studying an upright base that he had accidentally bumped into.

"I thought Slytherins were all petty and only did things that benefit them personally," Anna countered, siting on the bench next to Pansy.

"Oh but we are," Blaise said, grinning as he rested his elbows on the back of the piano.

"Speak for yourself," Pansy said with a sniff. Anna pushed down a couple keys, playing through a scale as the two argued. She had missed the piano, and her fingers itched to play, but she didn't want to be rude and ditch Pansy and Blaise. She hadn't missed the looks of distrust and anger that had been sent at them throughout breakfast.

"I have a list of a hundred things I've seen you do that were petty on the tip of my tongue," Blaise argued back. "For example, I know it was you that put itching powder in Astoria's uniform right after Christmas last year."

"She deserved that," pansy said, scowling at him. "And you can't prove it was me." Anna began to play through the first calming song that came to mind, Pachelbel's Cannon in D major, better known as the wedding march song. Pachelbel, along with Mozart and many other famous musicians, had been wizard's who's music had been adopted by muggles. This was one of the first songs Anna had learned by heart on piano, because her mother had liked to volunteer to have her play at wedding. Anything to show off to others how musically gifted her daughter was.

Anna tuned out the argument that had sprung up between her two companions and played through the entire song, then shifted into Claire de Lune. This one she had memorized because her mother liked it, even though it came from a muggle musician. Pansy and Blaise had fallen silent to listen, though Anna didn't notice. She had emptied her mind, as she usually did while playing. This was her way of calming down, de-stressing, and though she wasn't uptight or stressed at the moment, it still relaxed her significantly.

After Claire de Lune she began Moonlight Sonata, because it was her favorite one to play.

"Oh, I've heard that one before!" Pansy said, and Anna looked up. She had forgotten she wasn't alone. Pansy had stood at some point, giving Anna better reach of all the keys. She didn't stop playing, though she did falter a little.

"Hush woman," Blaise hissed at her, nudging her in the side.

"Mozart was a wizard," Anna said, a small smile on her lips as she continued to play. "The muggles call this kind of music 'Classical' so if you were raised in a traditional pureblood family, you've probably heard it at parties."

"How would you know that?" Pansy asked, though her voice wasn't argumentative. She leaned against the side of the piano, watching Anna's fingers flit over the keys. Anna looked back down at her hands with a smile. It seemed that music calmed more than just her.

"I had a traditional pureblood upbringing until my father passed away three years ago," Anna explained. "My mother didn't host gatherings, but we went to quite a few of them when I was young. In fact, I've probably met both of you before, though I don't remember. I usually begged off going out in favor of staying home to play piano. And I stopped going altogether when I was ten."

"My mother never hosted parties either," Blaise commented as the song came to an end. "She attended all of them though. I usually didn't go. That song does sound familiar though." Anna started in on another Mozart song, one she assumed they would know, as she remembered it from parties.

"Oh I know this one!" Pansy squealed in excitement.

"Can't you speak without squeaking?" Blaise asked with a sigh.

"Shut up," Pansy said. "Lets dance."

"No way in hell," Blaise said, frowning at her. "The last time I danced with you, you stepped on my foot at least ten times."

"I was fourteen," Pansy said, huffing. "And I did that on purpose." She held out a hand, and Blaise sighed, but took it. Anna watched with a smile as the two of them fell into a slow waltz to the music. Anna herself knew the steps because her father had thought it was something she would need to know if she were going to integrate herself into traditional wizarding society. He hadn't been a pureblood supremacist as many others had been, but he liked tradition, and her mother agreed, so Anna had learned all the dances, and how to properly conduct herself in various situations.

After her father had died, her mother had fallen into a depression. Anna had begun to play music and sing around the house as a way to help her mother cheer up a little. Her mother had latched on to the music, and thus had been born Anna's career in the muggle world.

She was brought out of her thoughts by Pansy's laugh as Blaise gave her a particularly overenthusiastic twirl. Anna smiled, watching their seemingly carefree faces. She might have thought that the war hadn't affected them at all if she hadn't seen Pansy's sad expression during their earlier serious conversation.

"Where did you learn to play?" A voice asked from the doorway, and Blaise and Pansy immediately stopped dancing and traded looks. Anna glanced to her side, at the newcomer, but didn't stop playing.

"I taught myself mostly," Anna replied to Ginny. The two were second cousins, but Anna had never before talked to the girl. Ginny stayed by the doorway to the room, and Blaise and Pansy made their way back to the piano, trying to stay out of the way.

"I think its wonderful," Ginny said, smiling at last as she walked further into the room. "I'd love to play, but I have no idea how."

"It's a little difficult to pick up," Anna said, finishing off the song. "I could teach you if you'd like."

"I'm not sure I'd have time to learn between classes and head girl duties," Ginny admitted, coming to a stop on the opposite side of the piano as the two Slytherins, who were eying her suspiciously now. Anna smiled up at them all, not letting the tension affect her.

"Pansy, Blaise, have you met my cousin Ginny Weasley?" Anna asked, making introductions, though she knew they probably knew each other already. "Ginny, these are my friends Pansy Parkinson and Blaise Zabini."

"Cousin?" Ginny asked at the same time as Blaise. Anna nearly laughed as they both looked at the other in confusion.

"Oh, right," Anna said, looking over to Ginny. "We haven't actually met before. My dad was Adrian Prewett, whom I believe was your mother's cousin. So we are second cousins."

"Really?" Ginny asked, finally dropping her cautious attitude. "I thought I'd met all my cousins."

"My dad once said we had over a hundred cousins on his side of the family," Anna said with a chuckle. "So it's not surprising."

"He was right," Ginny commented with a laugh.

"Um, Anna, we are going to go back to the common room," Pansy said after a moment's pause. Anna could tell the two Slytherins were uncomfortable, and she could also see the look of distaste Ginny threw at the other girl.

"Oh, I'll come with," Anna said, standing and dusting off her pants. "It was nice to meet you Ginny."

The three of them left the room, heading back along the hall in silence.

"So why does Ginny hate you?" Anna asked when they were in an empty part of the hall. Pansy coughed in surprise.

"Pansy offered up the Boy Wonder at the start of the last battle," Blaise commented as though he were talking about the weather. "She weasel and Boy Wonder have been together for months now."

"Oh right, I remember that," Anna said, chuckling at Blaise's nicknames.

"Can we not talk about this please?" Pansy asked as the reached the portrait of the two girls playing on a field.

"Dittany," Anna said, then walked through the doorway. "Sorry for bringing it up," she said as they turned to go into the right dorm hall where their room was.

"Look who's across the hall from us," Blaise pointed out, pushing the door labeled 4 open and walking inside. Pansy and Anna looked at where he pointed, and Pansy groaned quietly. It seemed as though Ginny and Hermione's room was right across from theirs. And across from the girls door, Ron Weasley and Harry Potter's name tags flashed in the hall light.

Anna shrugged and pushed her own door open. Hopefully the four Gryffindors wouldn't run into Anna's roommates too often. She really didn't want to get into the middle of anything.

"I'm going to take a nap," Anna said, plopping down onto her bed, which still had a few articles of clothing on it from that morning.

"I'm going to read through this rule list," Pansy said, sitting on her desk and grabbing the papers Anna had tossed there earlier.

"Are you going to follow any of the rules?" Anna asked, her voice muffled a bit by her pillow.

"Of course not," Pansy said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "But I need to get a general idea of them so I will at least know to be on the lookout while breaking them."

Anna chuckled, but didn't comment.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

The first week back at school seemed to fly by for Anna. Pansy and Blaise were in a few of her classes, and they both kept her occupied by making comments about the professors, or other students, and usually by the end of each class they had been reprimanded at least once. Draco was in all of her classes except History of Magic. In the classes she shared with him, but not the others, she always made sure to sit at his table, since nearly everyone else avoided him. In the two classes she shared with all three of her new suite mates, she always sat between Draco and Pansy, with Blaise on the other side of Pansy. Draco didn't seem put out with their behavior, as Anna would have done if she were in his position. She had mentioned it once, when they were working on a spell in Defense, but he had just shrugged and said he would do the same in their place. The other two didn't want to chance the Ministry suspecting them of anything, and Draco was the most watched and suspected person on their list at the moment. Anna would have thought that the most watched person would have been Draco's parents, since they both hadn't been sent to Azkaban at the end of the war. When she mentioned this to Draco, his eyes narrowed and he clenched his fists so hard his knuckles turned white. She had thought he was about to yell at her, and had apologized immediately for bringing it up, and he had cooled down, and remained silent for the rest of the class. As they walked together to lunch, he had informed her that his father had been killed over the summer. Anna nodded to show she had heard, but she didn't ask about it.

After that he had returned to their normal cordial attitude toward each other, and both of them had acted as though the conversation hadn't happened.

Anna enjoyed her classes, even History of Magic, and she and Pansy quickly fell into a pattern.

After classes ended for the day, the two girls would sit in the common room, usually in the corner decorated in Slytherin colors, since it was the emptiest, and work on homework together until dinner. They would then go and sit at the end of the seventh year table with the boys, and after the meal, the four of them would go their separate ways. Draco spent most of his time in his room, and Blaise, in an attempt to be seen with him less, spent his time out on the quidditch pitch.

Quidditch teams were being formed, with the stipulation that each team must have people from at least two houses, a rule which would only be in effect for the next few years. There would be a mass tryout in about a week's time, and the team captains, each whom would have had to file a request for said position with the head boy and girl, would choose players they wanted on their team. Before competition began, each team would have to be approved to make sure they met the new rules, and then they would have to apply for a team name.

Anna stayed out of all that as she had no desire to play the game. She spent most of her free time in the music room, wondering how long it would be until her mother would expect her to start writing new music.

Her first letter from her mother came on Friday evening. Anna and Pansy had both been lounging on their beds, reading with their dormitory door propped open, as Blaise had decided to join them. One of the new rules, which was enforced by a particularly complicated charm, was that members of the opposite sex could only be in the dorm so long as the door was open. It was an attempt by the faculty to limit places that the older students could use to 'occupy themselves in an unseemly manner'. It had only taken Pansy two days to point out that, if they really wanted to, co-ed suits could use their shared bathroom to get around that rule. The charm that kept the door from opening when the bathroom was occupied only worked when either the shower door, or the toilet door, were closed. And it only kept the other doors from being opened if they hadn't already been open.

Blaise was sitting in Anna's desk chair, with his feet flung up onto the desk as he leaned the chair back onto two legs and bounced a muggle tennis ball off the wall in front of him. The sharp tap on their window made him lose his balance for a second, and the chair fell back towards the floor. Anna waved her wand, casting a silent cushioning charm, which bounced the chair back up to it's normal position. She ignored the somewhat girly shriek Blaise had let out in favor of opening the window to let in the owl. It was familiar, her mother had bought the owl only two years before.

Anna untied the letter from her mother and fed the owl some treats out of a jar she kept by the window, then she opened the envelope. Her face fell the further she read until finally, she tossed the letter into the bin with a sigh.

"Troubles?" Blaise asked, resuming his earlier position.

"My mum must think I have all the free time in the world," Anna muttered. "And you might want to move."

"Why?" Blaise asked, tilting his head back to look at her lazily. At that moment, four more owls flew in the window, each struggling to carry large bags, which they dropped onto Anna's desk in front of Blaise, then flew off, ruffling their feathers and chirping angrily.

"What on earth?" Pansy asked, climbing off her bed to get a closer look as Anna upended one of the canvas bags, dumping a large pile of letters out onto the desk.

"My mother has very kindly ordered me to answer fan mail, since I'm out of the public eye for a while," Anna said, dumping out the three other bags as well.

"Public eye?" Pansy asked at the same time Blaise said "Fan mail?" in a confused voice.

"Have a look," Anna said, waving a hand at the pile of envelopes, some of which were falling to the floor as there was too many for the desk to hold. Blaise plucked a letter up and read over the front of it with a confused expression.

"Are these muggle letters?" Pansy asked, her voice curious rather than disdainful.

"Yes," Anna said with a sigh, carefully opening one of the envelopes and pulling out a couple pages of lined muggle notebook paper with untidy words scrawled across them.

"Why are so many muggles writing to you?" Blaise asked, pulling the papers out of her hand to read them.

"Oh, thats right, I forgot I hadn't told you," Anna said, pushing her hair out of her face. "I'm kinda famous among the muggles."

"Kinda famous?" Blaise asked incredulously. "This letter has three marriage proposals in it. And a declaration of undying love. And I'm pretty sure it was written by a girl."

"What did you do to be famous to the muggles?" Pansy asked, grabbing the letter from Blaise's hand.

"I sing," Anna said, shrugging as she opened another letter. "Music is really big in the muggle world, and I'm kinda good at it. I won an award last summer, and it was broadcasted on their muggle televisions, so a lot of people saw it."

"Whats a television?" Blaise asked, mispronouncing the unfamiliar word. To Anna's surprise Pansy was the one who explained it to him, getting everything mostly right.

"So you're really famous then?" Blaise asked when the explanations had ended. By that point, Anna had opened and read about a dozen letters, and she made sure to carefully place each one back into its envelope so she would know who to reply to.

"I suppose," Anna said, shrugging.

"Do you want help replying to all of these?" Pansy asked, opening a new letter.

"Why on earth would you possibly want to help me write back to all these people?" Anna asked incredulously, looking up from her current letter, which was a very unflattering drawing done by a young child.

"She just wants to pretend she's the famous one and all these letters are to her," Blaise said in a bored tone, tossing his tennis ball at the wall again. Pansy glared at him for a moment, then next time he threw the ball up, she pointed her wand at it silently. The ball zoomed back to Blaise, hitting his stomach with enough force to knock his chair backwards, into Anna's still placed cushioning charm.

"Oof," Blaise gasped, rolling off the cushioning charm onto the floor by Anna's bed, clutching his stomach as he tried to suck in air. Pansy ignored him and waved her wand to right the turned over chair.

"I know a handy little charm that will change my handwriting to match yours, and you can sign them all," Pansy continued as though Blaise hadn't spoken at all. "In return for help, you can show me that trick with the eyeliner and you can let me borrow that one dress you have with the blue flowers on it."

"As long as you promise to write sickeningly nice things in every letter," Anna said with a shrug. She grabbed a bag of blank envelopes and stamps that her mother had sent her and began using her wand to copy the names and addresses.

"Deal," Pansy said with a grin, grabbing a stack of letters from Anna's desk. Blaise, still wheezing on the floor, was ignored by both girls.

Friday night, and most of Saturday, was spent reading particularly hilarious bits of letters out loud to each other, and then laughing over the motivational things both girls wrote in response. Anna kept the various drawings and other artwork she had been sent. Some of it was better than others, but she liked them all. It was sweet to think that all of these people had spent time making things for her, and she said so in her letters back to them.

She finished going through about half the letters by Sunday morning, and sent the completed ones back to her mother to be mailed out. She would finish the rest of them next weekend, maybe.

* * *

Anna walked into her NEWT Charms lesson Monday morning with a sense of accomplishment. Over the weekend, they'd had an essay to write, and even though her mother had given her the task of going through fan mail, and she'd had a complicated potion to study for this afternoon, Anna had still managed to write eleven inches more than required, and she had done a very through job, if she did say so herself.

She placed her scroll on the pile of them that was steadily growing on Flitwick's desk, then went to take her usual seat. She shared this class with both Blaise and Draco, and she made sure to sit at the same table as Draco. Blaise didn't seem to begrudge her for ditching him, in fact, he had told her just the day before that he was glad she was trying to be Draco's friend. Anna thought his easy acceptance of having to find someone else to sit beside was helped along by the fact that his new table partner was an exceedingly pretty girl who giggled and blushed at his flirting.

"Okay, okay, now that everyone's here, let's get started," Professor Flitwick said in his squeaky voice. He was perched atop five or six fat books, which were balanced on a stool, and still his head only just cleared the lectern. "This week we will be starting on a project that will take most of you until Christmas break to complete. I will give you this week to begin working on it, and next week we will return to regular classes and you will have to work on it in your free time as homework. You will be working in groups of two, and one group of three since there will be an odd person out."

A soft whispering took up in the room at this announcement as people began picking their partners. Anna sat silently at her table, not bothering to look around the room. Whoever else didn't have a partner would pair with her, that was how it usually went in these situations. It wasn't that she was stupid, she was actually in the top five of her class, but people liked to work with their friends over someone they didn't know.

"Not so fast," Professor Flitwick called over the talking, and the room fell silent. "I will be assigning you partners at the end of class, based off your essay scores. For now, please open your books to chapter seven and begin reading."

Anna flipped the cover of her book open and obediently turned to the required reading, but she was one of the only few people who did. As Flitwick clambered down from his stool and went to his desk, the pile of scrolls hovering behind him, most of the class opened their books, and promptly began whispering to each other, or passing notes under the desks. Besides Anna, there were nine other ex-Ravenclaws in this class, the highest number of any house. There were six Slytherins, five Hufflepuffs, and five Gryffindors. Of the 25 students, all of the Ravenclaws were diligently reading their books, and besides Draco, and a Hufflepuff girl that Anna thought was named either Reyna or Renee, but she couldn't remember, everyone else in the room, Blaise included, seemed to care less about the assignment.

Anna, however, was completely enraptured from the first sentence. She hadn't gotten an opportunity to read this far ahead in their lessons yet, and she couldn't recall ever hearing about the subject in class before.

The chapter was, for all intents and purposes, about creating new Charms. Anna supposed that someone, many someones in fact, must have been good at this at some time, since all the charms they used these days had to have been created by someone.

There was a lot more to creating new spells then Anna would have thought, had she ever given the subject thought before. Not only did you have to have a firm idea of what you wanted the spell to accomplish, but you had to find the right words and wand movements, which meant finding the language most likely to conduct the proper meaning, and you had to be prepared for any backlash from using the wrong words or movements.

Greek, according to the book, was the most common language used for healing spells. This was most likely because Greek was the language most commonly used by physicians in ancient times.

Latin was used for a wider variety of spells, Anna read, because it was the most commonly known language among wizards in the 1600's when most current charms were created. Usually Latin based spells were the higher-order spells, like the patrons charm, and the disarming charm.

Lower-level hexes and common household charms used in modern times usually had English roots, as those charms varied from century to century and changed with the language in the area it was used.

After you found the correct language to use for your new charm, and studied the words thoroughly to make sure there were no other interpretations of them, then you had to have enough willpower to make your magic work for you in a new way, much like learning a new spell, the book said, except you had to figure it out for your own without anyone telling you.

Anna reread the last couple paragraphs a couple times. Flitwick wouldn't have assigned this chapter for reading during this class unless it had something to do with the project he had just announced, so their assignment, Anna predicted, was probably to create a new charm.

She glanced up at the front of the room for a moment, then towards the clock above the door. Instead of finding the time, she found herself looking over at Draco. He had clearly finished the chapter and come to the same concluding Anna had. Or he was just thinking of something else really hard while staring at the front of the room with his brows drawn a little. He turned to her after a moment and raised a brow. She raised one back, then turned back to her book, a little embarrassed to have been caught staring. She just hadn't noticed until that moment how soft his hair looked. It was a few shades lighter than her own hair, which had been pulled back into a simple ponytail today. She was regretting not leaving it down to shield her face now that her cheeks were undoubtedly red.

She picked up her quill and began taking notes from the book as she read over the chapter for a second time.

Finally, about ten minutes before the class was scheduled to end, Professor Flitwick walked slowly up the aisle of tables, handing back their graded essays.

Anna eagerly unrolled hers, proud to see the note scribbled across the top that read 'Excellent research, O'. Within the scroll was a page of rules for the project that simply had 'Draco Malfoy and Anna Prewett' scrawled across it. She nearly sighed. Of course she would have to be paired with Draco after she had been been caught staring at him only moments ago. She glanced at him now, seeing a note similar to hers at the top of his essay. He also had received an O, but Anna was sure that there had to be others in the class that had also gotten an Outstanding score, so why had she been paired with Draco? As she watched her classmates, she noticed that no one was paired with someone who had been in their previous house. More 'unity' efforts from the staff, Anna supposed.

"When would you like to start working on this?" Anna asked, turning back to her table partner.

"After dinner?" Draco asked, not looking at her.

"Today?" Anna asked, surprised. "But Quidditch tryouts are tonight."

"Oh, were you doing to try out?" Draco asked, looking at her in mild amusement. She was sure she hand mentioned her dislike of quidditch in front of him before, most likely when Blaise had left his disgusting sweaty quidditch practice gear in the bathroom on the floor.

"No," Anna said, frowning as she packed away her book and notes. "I thought you would. Weren't you on the Slytherin team for a while?"

"Yes," Draco said shortly. His face had adopted its usual mask, though moments before he had looked almost playful. "I'm not trying out."

"Why not?" She asked, frowning now. She didn't mind talking aloud now as most of the class had moved to talk to their assigned partners or friends.

"I don't need to explain myself to you," he snapped in a haughty voice, and Anna sighed and turned back to face the front of the room.

"I know. I was just asking," she said, her voice soft. She had thought she was doing a good job of befriending the Slytherins, even with their previous reputation of not talking to anyone unless it benefited them. Draco sighed, then leaned forward to rest his elbows on the edge of the table, head supported by one hand while the other fell to the opposite shoulder.

"I'm… sorry," he said, as though the words were new to him. "I didn't mean to be rude."

"It's okay," Anna said immediately. She hadn't even thought of the words as rude, more like a warning that she was prying. "After dinner is great for me. Should we meet in the common room or the library?" He hesitated before answering.

"The common room," he said at last. "We will need to come up with an idea for a charm before trying to find books on the subject."

"Right," Anna said, still thinking about their earlier conversation. Quidditch wasn't exactly a private conversation topic, though maybe his reasons for not trying out were private. It must have been something that bothered him, or that he was angry about, if it made him snap at her.

Her thoughts were interrupted as the class ended, and Draco was out of the room before she could say anything else. She walked down to lunch with Blaise, listening to him talk about nothing important.

"Why would Draco get upset about quidditch?" She asked at a lull in his words. She hadn't meant to ask but the words just slipped out.

"Upset?" Blaise asked with a frown.

"I asked why he wasn't going to try out tonight and he snapped at me a little," Anna explained, figuring that since she had already asked she may as well continue. "Then he apologized for being rude."

"Did he really?" Blaise asked, surprised, then he grinned knowingly, confusing Anna. "He's probably not trying out because he doesn't think anyone will want him on their team. Only one of the new captains is from Slytherin, and the other five captains wouldn't pick anyone who had… well, its just not likely that he will be put on a team, even if he did try out."

"Because being seen spending time with a Malfoy looks bad to the Ministry," Anna said, rolling her eyes. "I understand, but I think its stupid."

"Most of us were raised to always think about what the 'public eye' would see and how it would affect our family's standing," Blaise explained, his face unusually serious as they walked down to the Great Hall. "Our parents told us who to befriend and who not to be seen talking to. You must understand right? I'm sure its the same being in the public eye of the muggles. There must be people that you being seen with will make your standing among the public raise or lower."

"Yes, I understand," Anna said, nodding. Her mother and her manager had constantly talked about things like that. While Anna didn't really care as much as they did, she knew that there were interviews and events that her mother had turned down because it wouldn't be good for Anna to be seen there. "I don't like it, it doesn't seem right. It sounds a lot like prejudice." Blaise came to a sudden stop at that and looked down at her.

"You're right, it does," he said, frowning again. "Are you sure you weren't a Gryffindor? Don't do something because it 'doesn't seem right'?"

"You don't have to be a Gryffindor to have good morals," Anna said with a sniff, then turned to go into the Great Hall.

"I didn't say you were wrong," Blaise said, catching up to her as she took her usual seat at the almost end of the seventh year table. Draco's usual seat at the very end was empty, but Pansy was in her seat, and she was practically bouncing with excitement as the other two sat down.

"Guess what?" She said as soon as the food appeared. "I have a date this weekend for our Hogsmeade visit."

"Who would be crazy enough to want to spend time with you willingly?" Blaise asked, grabbing a roll. Anna snorted at Pansy's mutinous look. She had quickly learned that what she heard as mean and hurtful comments were actually jokingly playful when shared between Blaise and Pansy, and even Draco on some occasions. The three of them, along with Daphne Greengrass, who hadn't returned this year, had been best friends since before their school days.

"Just for that, I'm not telling you," Pansy said, turning her nose up at them and taking a bite of her food. Anna giggled, as Blaise began to bicker with Pansy.

* * *

Anna spent a majority of her time in her afternoon classes thinking about what kind of Charm would be worth inventing. Charms was her favorite class, and her best subject, so she wanted it to be a good one. The list of rules they had been given in class to outline the project had said that variations on current charms would be accepted so long as they did something different, but she wanted to do something completely new.

By the time dinner rolled around she still had no idea what to do. Maybe Draco would have come up with something.

Halfway through the meal, her mother's large brown owl swooped through an open window and glided toward her. She sighed as she untied the letter, wishing that her mother could have written her in the morning like everyone else's parents did. Though now that she thought of it, Anna wasn't exactly sure where her mother was currently at. She had mentioned some traveling with Anna's manager to promote the girl, but Anna wasn't exactly sure what that meant.

The envelope was thick, which made Anna sigh again as she opened it. Thick meant either a long list of things her mother wanted her to do, or one thing her mother wanted her to do that was unpleasant and hence needed a lot of explanation or convincing.

The seventh year table was particularly empty today. Though quidditch tryouts for them was scheduled for after dinner, tryouts for the earlier years had been between the end of classes and dinner, and many of the older students had gone to watch, even if they hadn't planned on trying out themselves, Blaise and Pansy included. In fact, the only person on their usual end of the table was Draco, and he was doing a very good job of ignoring her. He had already eaten, but he had a book propped open against the table, and he hadn't looked up from it once except to return her greeting when she had first gotten there.

Anna pushed aside her mostly empty plate to lay the papers out in front of her, then let out a groan when she realized what lay in front of her. Her mother had sent her a schedule, one that, as she read it, Anna realized would take up every moment of her free time for the rest of the term. Anna suspected that the headmistress had told Anna's mother that she would not be allowed to take her daughter off the grounds on class days until after she was of age, which would be at the end of next month, because thats when the schedule began to include things on school nights.

"Something wrong?" Draco asked, his voice sharp, and obviously annoyed.

"My mum's insane," Anna muttered, fishing through her bag for a quill. Draco didn't respond, but rather, went back to his reading, so Anna returned to ignoring him for the moment.

The actual letter from her mum was surprisingly short, as though she didn't think Anna would need any convincing. All it stated was that she and Anna's manager, a very bossy woman who Anna was now starting to really really dislike, had gotten this schedule approved by the headmistress.

Though she lacked a lot of knowledge about the muggle world, Anna had spent a lot of time in the last few years learning about the music industry, so she had a pretty good idea about which things on the schedule she could skip without too much backlash. She couldn't skip everything though, especially the recording studio that was booked in her name the weekend after next. She had a few dozen songs that had already been written and were ready for recording. The new song she had sung on television just days before coming to school had already been recorded and released as a single after that performance, so she had a bit of time before she would be expected to release anything else, but her mother wanted to have enough songs put together to release an album before Christmas. Anna was sure she could do it, but not if she also expected to keep up with her school work and do all these other social events her mother had scheduled for her.

This was what Anna wrote in her return letter, then she set about crossing things off the schedule, such as the radio station interview scheduled for that weekend, and a magazine photo op for two weeks after that. She also crossed off every single event that had been written in on a school night, which she was sure would cause some sort of backlash from her mother. She finished her letter with a statement that she didn't think needed explanation.

'I will NOT work on school nights. I need time to complete assignments and be well rested for class the next day. NOTHING is more important than my education.'

She duplicated the revised schedule, then folded up the original ones and her letter, attaching both to the waiting owl without bothering to put them into an envelope. She gave the owl some leftover scraps of ham from her plate, she had lost her appetite by that point, and it flew off toward the window with a soft hoot.

"Ready?" Draco asked, and she looked over at him in confusion. "To work on our Charms assignment." He added that as though she were stupid.

"Oh, right," Anna said, stuffing the schedule into her bag. "Let's go." She got to her feet and they began the long walk up to their common room in silence. She was lost in thought, going over her mothers letter. Was she just being stubborn by refusing to leave the school on school nights, even once she was old enough to do so? Surely her marks wouldn't suffer so much if she were a bit tired during classes. Well, it wasn't like she couldn't still work on her music while she was here, the new music room was as seldom used as the old one had been, and Anna was pretty good at silencing Charms, so if she really wanted to she could practice after curfew. Living with the seventh years, which included the head boy and girl, had it's advantages, such as the prefect and teachers patrolling schedules left where anyone might find them by accident.

"Dittany," Draco said, drawing Anna from her thoughts. The wall holding the painting swung open, but neither entered the room. The amount of noise that swarmed over them nearly had Anna covering her ears.

It took her a moment to realize that the noise was not excitement, but rather arguing. Well, there was a lot of excited shouting too, but the parts that Anna could put together were mostly arguments.

"I can't believe you would pick him over me!"

"Ron, stop yelling."

"He's a Slytherin!"

"He's also an excellent keeper, and McKinnon asked me earlier if she could pick you for her team."

"But I'm your best friend! Now we will have to play against each other."

"Afraid of a little competition, Weasley?"

"Lets go to the library," Draco said after a moment. "I don't want to get involved in that."

"Okay," Anna said, nodding in agreement. From what she had gathered, Harry Potter, who had been appointed as one of the six new quidditch captains, had chosen Blaise Zabini to be the keeper for his team, the position previously occupied by Ron Weasley. "I'm surprised tryouts are over so soon."

"They've been out there all day, they probably just did them early," Draco said, shrugging. His voice was completely bored, and she almost believed that he wasn't interested at all.

"Have you thought about what kind of Charm we should create?" Anna asked, not wanting to say the wrong thing about quidditch and upset him again. If he knew why she was changing the subject, he didn't say anything.

"I have a couple ideas, but I'm not sure they are worth looking into," he said. "I want to do something new, not a moderation of a current spell."

"Yes, me too," she said, pleased he was taking the project seriously. This was an opportunity to really put her spellwork to the test, and she wanted to prove to herself that she was intelligent enough to be in Ravenclaw, which was something she had doubted many times over the years. Sure, she got above average marks, but she wasn't the top of her year, or even the top of her year in Ravenclaw.

"Did you have any ideas?" He asked, and she was glad to see that he had let his disinterested bored mask drop a little. She wished she had something to suggest, but her mind was drawing a blank.

"Er, no," she said quietly as they entered the library. It wasn't empty, but it was much quieter than the common room at the moment. "I was thinking about it earlier, but everything I thought of that a charm would be useful for has been done already."

"Lets start by looking through the charms that have been created already," Draco suggested, walking between the tall bookshelves. "Maybe it will give us some ideas. At the very least it will tell us what not to do."

"Okay," Anna said, following behind him as he weaved through the shelves to the section on Charms and began pulling books from the shelf. She held out her arms for him to pile them onto, and the stack was high enough that her arms were shaking with the effort of holding them before he was satisfied. He took the top half of the stack and they went to a table in the back of the library. This section was almost always unoccupied, partially because it was extremely dusty, and partly because it was Madame Pince's favorite place to lurk.

She gave them the stink eye as Draco set his books down with a soft thud, then disappeared between two dimly lit shelves.

Anna set her books down too, then pulled out a blank parchment for notes and dropped her bag beside her chair as she sat.

The two of them worked in silence for more than an hour, and she had begun writing down charm alteration ideas, just in case they couldn't think of anything new to try.

After another half hour, Anna begun to get lost in her thoughts about her mother's schedule. She had been annoyed when she had crossed some of those things off. Maybe she should have held onto it for a bot before sending it back, her mother was bound to be angry.

Anna hoped she wouldn't try to make her drop out of school. It was something that Anna had already considered and decided against, but as her mother hadn't brought it up yet, she probably hadn't thought of it. The end of Anna's letter might set that thought going though. Anna turned seventeen at the end of October, and after that, the Ministry couldn't dictate whether or not she went to school. She had also considered homeschooling, but had immediately dismissed the idea. If her mother was her teacher, Anna would have next to no excuses to skip events.

Some of the social things she had gone to were fun though. Like the VMA's after party, and the various charity dinners she had gone to last summer. And the concerts were the most fun. She had only done two of them, but the exertion from being on stage and the excitement of performing were unbeatable.

She would have to start preparing an argument to give to her mother if she brought up dropping out of school. There were a handful of magical musicians that Anna could think of off the top of her head, and she was fairly sure most of them had finished their education before starting their careers. It was also pureblood tradition for children to complete their NEWT's at Hogwarts, though Anna wasn't sure that argument would work since she had argued against tradition to start her singing career.

Maybe she could look up a family history of the Prewett's and tell her mother that she didn't want to be the first in the family to drop out.

There wasn't exactly a music history section in the library though, and the section of unsorted books took up over ten aisles, not exactly a quick project. And she wouldn't be able to summon any books she needed unless she knew the titles of them. Maybe she could ask Madame Pince, though that idea was one she would rather avoid.

"Oh," Anna said softly, realizing where her mind had just wandered. She looked up, her eyes bright, as Draco gave her a suspicious look. "Muggles have these things called computers," she began, trying to set up her idea so that he would understand it. "They run by electricity, and you can do all sorts of things on them. I sort of learned how to use them over the summer."

"Good for you," Draco said in a bored tone, turning back to his book.

"There's this thing you can do on them though," Anna explained quickly, her voice growing a little more excited. "I don't know the exact way, but you can write something in, and the computer will highlight the word you wrote in if it's anywhere in the document. Like, if I had a book about Potions written in the computer, and I wrote in Lacewing Flies, the computer would tell me all the pages that Lacewing Flies are mentioned on."

"Okay," Draco said, dragging the word out a little. His brows were drawn in a scowl, though it looked as though he was just confused, rather than angry.

"So what if we could make a charm that did something like that, but with books?" Anna said, leaning in a little. Madame Pince had poked her head around the side of a shelf near them, her eyes narrowed in a glare. "For example, when you are trying to find a book about a particular subject for an essay for class, you could cast the charm, and all the books that mentioned the subject would come to you?"

"That sounds like an alteration on the summoning charm," Draco said, frowning.

"It doesn't have to be, we could make the books do something else," she said, not wanting him to reject her idea so soon. "Like light up, or maybe come to you and also open to the needed pages?"

"Hm," he said, frowning in thought again as he stared down at the book he had been reading. "That does sound like it could be useful…" he admitted after another moment, and she couldn't help the grin that broke out on her face. She quickly forced her mouth into a less gloating expression before he could look up at her.

"So we can try it? Even though it might be an alteration?" Anna asked, just to be sure.

"We need to make sure something like that doesn't exist already," Draco said, waving a hand over their books. Anna sighed, looking at the stack they still hadn't looked at yet.

"Right," she said in a resigned tone, flipping a page in her book.

Sometime later, they were both reading silently when Anna happened to glance up at a slight movement in the corner of her eye. She jumped as she came face to face with Madame Pince's scowling face, less than three inches away from her.

"Holy sh-" she cut herself off from the curse just in time, mostly because she had lost balance on her chair and was leaning precariously to the side. She caught herself on the edge of the table, meeting Draco's amused gaze for a half second before they both turned to face the sneering woman.

"Curfew is in ten minutes," her raspy voice reminded Anna a little of the sound a cat might make if it were being run over by a car. "Either check out those books or put them away. Correctly."

"Yes ma'am," Anna said, getting to her feet. Madame Pince disappeared surprisingly fast and silent. Draco chuckled as soon as they were alone, and she turned to look at him, then huffed when she realized he was laughing at her.

"Which books should we keep?" Draco asked when she opened her mouth to make a snarky comment back.

"I still haven't looked through these three," Anna said, patting three very old looking books.

"Alright, you take those three, I'll take these two," Draco said, gesturing at his pile. One of his books looked to be about as thick as all of hers put together, so she didn't bother complaining about the difference. Instead, she grabbed four of the other books and went to put them away.

* * *

By Friday afternoon, the only thing Anna knew for sure was that her idea for a charm wasn't in any of the books they had looked through. The newer ones had index's to go through which made them easy, but the old ones were not very well organized and they'd had to skim every page, but in the end, Draco agreed to trying it.

Anna hadn't heard back from her mother yet. She wasn't sure if this was a good thing of not.

"I wish we could get off the school grounds for a bit," Draco said at dinner that evening. Anna looked up, not sure what he was talking about.

"Why?" She asked when he didn't continue. Pansy had gone back up to their room early, saying that she needed to get ready for her date the next day. Blaise was at quidditch practice, and their end of the table was mostly empty, but Draco still leaned in as though they were plotting something.

"I know there are more detailed books about spell creation in the Malfoy library," he said in an aggravated tone. "But I don't know what they are called so I can't just get someone to post them."

"Oh," Anna said, frowning in thought. The Hogwart's library was surprisingly lacking in the department of spell creation books. They didn't have their own section, and the two of them hadn't been able to find anything more descriptive than their very short chapter in their Charms NEWT level book.

"Maybe I could try to get away during the Hogsmeade weekend," Draco continued, but he was frowning a bit.

"Don't do anything that will get you in trouble with the Ministry," Anna said, rolling her eyes as she fished through her bag.

"Oh and you have a better idea?" Draco asked, sneering.

"Actually, I do," Anna said with a sigh. She did have a way, an already approved way, to get off the Hogwarts grounds, but she really didn't want to use it. She flattened the much crumpled schedule from her mother in front of her, quickly finding the small box that corresponded with today's date. There wasn't anything for Friday, but her mother had written in two events for Saturday, which Anna had previously crossed out. She used her wand to siphon off the most recently added ink, the glared down at the paper.

There was a breakfast interview for tomorrow morning, and a dinner party for that evening. She sighed and rubbed a hand over her face. She had begun forgoing makeup the week before, and she hadn't bothered to do much to her hair besides throw it up in a bun or ponytail. She knew there was no way for photographers to catch her unprepared here, so she didn't bother going through the effort.

"Okay," she said, her voice tired. "I have a way to get off the grounds, but it'll be a bit… complicated."

"Complicated how?" Draco asked, frowning down at the schedule, though she was sure he wouldn't understand much of it.

"Well, I can get us both off the grounds tomorrow, but it will involve going to a couple… events with me," Anna said, pulling out a parchment to write a quick note to her mother. "You won't have to do much, and it'll be really boring, but hopefully we will have most of the afternoon free to go to your library."

"You, er, want to come with?" He asked, his face closed off behind a mask again.

"God yes," Anna said. "If I'm getting us off the grounds, there is no way I'm going to spend time with my mother in her crazy mode longer than I have to."

"Er, right," he said, frowning.

"I'll just need to write my mum," Anna said, scribbling quickly. "She won't care who I bring so long as I actually go." She said this more to herself than to him. "But you will need something appropriate to wear. I think I can transfigure your robes though. And you will need a different name. Something more common."

"What's wrong with my name?" Draco asked, scowling at her. Anna nearly giggled as she rolled up her letter.

"Nothing's wrong with it, exactly," she began, choosing her words carefully. "But leaving with my mum will mean spending time in the muggle world, and you will need to blend in."

"Why can't I just leave with you and then go to the manor on my own?" Draco asked, his voice distasteful.

"My mum wouldn't let us blatantly break rules right away," Anna said, shrugging. "But if I build her up to it then we will have a better chance. I can tell her we are going out to lunch and she will probably be too busy to come with, then we can disapparate to wherever. But I still have the trace on me, and I don't have my license, so you will have to do it."

"Whatever," Draco said, shaking his head. "As long as it gets us off the grounds I'll do it."

"Great," Anna said, getting to her feet. "I have to go mail this and then I'll go talk to Headmistress McGonagall and convince her."

She left before Draco could protest, heading for the owlery. She used a school owl to send the letter, then made her way to the staff room, where she was sure there would be someone who could get the Headmistress for her.

As it turned out, she didn't need to find another professor. The Headmistress was leaving the Great Hall just as Anna came back in the front doors.

"Excuse me, Headmistress," Anna called, making the older woman turn, her face drawn into a frown.

"Yes miss Prewett?" She asked, her voice sharp.

"I was wondering if I could talk to you for a moment, about the schedule my mother sent me of when I am allowed to leave the grounds for my music things," Anna said, slightly out of breath. "I have some things tomorrow, and I was hoping to ask a favor. You see, in my charms class we were assigned this difficult project to work on, and my partner and I had been planning on working over the weekend, but my mother says that these two events tomorrow are very important for me to go to. We will have a lot of down time between them though, so I was hoping that I could bring my partner with me so we could work on our project during the day. My mum would take responsibility for both of us."

"And who is your partner for this assignment?" The Headmistress asked, her eyes narrowing a little.

"Draco Malfoy, ma'am," Anna said. She had been hoping she could leave his name out of it. McGonagall's eyes tightened a bit, but then her expression changed.

"Mr. Malfoy has agreed to this? To going out in the muggle world?" She asked.

"Yes ma'am," Anna said, nodding quickly.

"And you would be sure to only work on this out of sight of the muggles?" She asked, and Anna could feel her almost giving in. She nodded eagerly. "Well, as Mr. Malfoy is of age, and this weekend is a Hogsmede weekend, I suppose that arrangements could be made."

"Thank you so much!" Anna said, grinning widely. She was a little surprised that her idea had worked out so easily. Now all she had to do was wait for her mother to agree.

"Wait just a moment," the Headmistress said, making Anna turn back to her. "I hope that you will not let this muggle career you are starting to push your studies aside. A career can begin at any time with very similar results, but your schooling must be completed at this time. You cannot leave and then return when it suits you."

"Yes ma'am," Anna said, nodding seriously. "I know. I already told my mum that I won't be doing anything on school nights, even after I am of age. I want to finish my NEWT's first."

"Very well," she said, then gave Anna a nod and turned to walk regally up the stairs.

As dinner was already over, Anna turned to climb up the levels to her common room to work on some other homework. Before bed, she received a letter back from her mum, that said pretty much what Anna expected it to say. Yes she could bring a friend, so long as they didn't mess up the interview and could conduct themselves properly at a dinner party. Anna went through their shared bathroom and knocked on the door opposite hers until it opened. Draco had obviously been sleeping. His eyes were a little red, and he was scowling, and his hair was disheveled. He wore only boxers, with no shirt, and Anna blushed and looked at a point to the right of him as she relayed her news and told him when to be ready to leave.

"What was that about?" Pansy asked as Anna returned to their room, her face red. Pansy was lounging on her bed, reading a book, though it didn't look like one for class.

"Just some things about our Charm's project," Anna said, flopping down on her own bed.

"Mhm, right," Pansy said disbelievingly. Anna sighed but didn't reply, and Pansy dropped the subject in favor of sleep.

* * *

Anna woke at a little after four to a soft beeping coming from the watch she left on her bedside table to use as an alarm. She was lucky that Pansy was a heavy sleeper, or she was sure the other girl would have grumbled about the early hour. Anna knew she would grumble if she didn't have a good reason to be up. She might grumble anyway, she wasn't awake enough to decide yet.

A quick shower later found her dressed in muggle clothes appropriate for the interview, leaning over the bathroom counter in an effort to put on her makeup without getting any on her crisp white blouse.

By five she was ready to go, her wand and a few other things tucked into her purse, and her traveling cloak draped over her arm. While it was still early autumn outside, and therefore quite warm during the days, the nights and early mornings were chilly, even indoors, when there wasn't a hearth with a fire to keep them warm.

She didn't want to knock on the boys' door, not wanting to wake Blaise, but if they didn't leave soon they would be late. She would have tried opening the door, but the charm to keep the opposite sex out of their room while the front door was closed would send nasty little sparks up her arm, or so Pansy said.

She didn't need to worry for long though, because as she went back to the mirror to give her hair another check, the door opened from the other side, and Draco emerged, fully dressed and ready for the day.

Anna waited until they were out on the grounds to speak. Draco didn't look any more awake than she did.

"I think we should call you Drake, instead of Draco, to the muggles at least. Drake is a much more common name," Anna said as they walked quickly through the predawn lit grounds toward the gate.

"Whatever," Draco said passively.

"And I think we should give you a new surname too. Something else common, like Williams, or Taylor," she said. "And I'll need to transfigure your robes." He didn't reply, just shrugged. "And I don't think the muggles will try to talk to you, but if they do could you please be polite to them?"

"Fine," he said, his voice growing irritated.

When they reached Hogsmeade, Anna was quick to spot her mother, waiting for them outside the Three Broomsticks.

"Mum," Anna said in greeting, leaning in to hug her mother.

"You've gained weight," was her mothers return greeting.

"No I haven't," Anna said with a sigh. "I checked this morning. I'm the same as when I left."

"Well you could still do well to lose a few," Anna's mum said, then turned to Draco without leaving room for argument. Her eyes narrowed as she looked him over. "This won't do."

"Mum," Anna began, but her mother lifted her wand and quickly transfigured Draco's black robes into a common looking black muggle suit. Anna sighed again, but didn't comment. "This is my friend Drake Williams."

"I trust you know how to conduct yourself around muggles?" Anna's mother said, peering over him. He raised an eyebrow, and Anna could nearly sense the impolite answer he was about to give.

"Of course he does mum," Anna said. "We are going to be late."

"Right, of course," Anna's mum said, then held out her arm to her daughter, and the other to Draco. When they both had grabbed hold, the three of them disapparated with a crack, leaving the street empty once again.


End file.
